Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: Why Should We Follow The Rabbi's ?

You see your tomorrow [Music] Okay. Hi everybody. Thank you. Thank you for coming. And uh let me just read our dedications. As always, we're praying for the victory of our soldiers in all fronts of the war, the lasting unity of the people of AmIrael, and for all those whose health has been affected by the war, and of course for the safe return of all of the hostages. uh also a Rafua Schlma in gratitude for six months uh Tova Deoya's ongoing rafu schlma we're happy to hear that and then it mentions Joey Briters's unfl flagging energy and dedication in sharing his Torah knowledge of Torah and guiding people um I will accept the unfl flagging energy as a brah I can't say that it's a reality but bezem uh it should be muyam uh two anonymous contributor in this for the quick of the they should all come home physically and mentally safe the the safe return of the and uh very important the all those who are struggling with should find their basher uh with clarity and without a nephesh amen and finally by Alex and Masha Sherman for the unity of the Jewish people again as always we're very grateful for the Torah. Uh want to wish everybody a keshto. I think our last year was before kodesh. Now we're in the month of the month of uh and as I mentioned last week I am for my beloved. My beloved is for me shirim. The first letters are l is the month of love. And as I said last week again the theme will be repeated uh over and over again. One does chuva not out of a sense of their inadequacies but out of a sense of feeling Hashem's love. As you feel Hashem's love, you want to give Hashem nas. You want to give Hashem pleasure. So you'll want to be a better person simply because you feel Hashem's love for you. It's a totally different motivation. It's not the motivation of I'm bad, I'm broken, I'm deficient, I'm defective. The chuva comes from a recognition of your greatness and your worth and how precious you are in the eyes of God. As the old commercial used to say, a life is a terrible thing to waste. Remember this old commercial from the 1960s. And that's the sense a person has a of the preciousness of of existence than they want to use every moment. In fact, just to digress for a moment, uh inos talk about something uh well in Latin it's momento which means that one should remember the day of death. Remember the day of death and that will keep you righteous. So for many people, maybe most people that sounds a little depressing. You know, remember you're going to die, right? We're as they say, nobody gets out of here alive, right? That's the that's the way that's the nature of life. But the truth is could also be seen in a very positive way. Meaning knowing that we are not going to live forever and knowing that we never know really when our last day is. We want to make every moment matter. We want to make every moment count. It can give a person an enhanced sense of the preciousness of life. and therefore they will use their life in good and positive ways precisely because it's not going to be forever and therefore you want to make the most of it. So it should actually be a motivator something that gives a person energy and uh and that's the idea of in a in a positive way. So uh this para uh as all the paras of the Torah this para is very very interesting in some ways you might summarize it as a para that creates authority structures. It creates legal structures of various ways. Now uh for example uh it talks about the establishment of courts a judiciary. It talks about mel which is the executive right the the king. It talks about Na'vi the prophet which is the spiritual leader. Now you have to understand that this notion of division of function separation of powers is really something that is paddeda after Mosher Rabenu dies. Mosher Rabenu himself was a one-man show. Mosher Rabenu himself combined all of these different roles within one persona. Mosher Rabenu had the den of a mel. Indeed, the Gomorrah actually describes Mosher Rabenu as a king. He was of course the political leader. Mosher Rabenu was the greatest of the prophets and Mosher Rabenu at least until he anointed the 70 elders. Moshe was the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin of 70 was really a Sanhedrin of one and that was Mosher Rabenu. So Mosher Rabenu embodied all of these different functions. But once we're coming to Erit Israel, there now will be a division of labor. So for example, a Na'vi, a prophet is not the leader. In fact, this is very interesting. According to the Gomorrah, a Na'vi is not allowed to decide matters based on prophecy. Uh this is the loay. The Torah is not in heaven. So the role of the Na'vi is to provide spiritual ethical guidance. The Sanhedrin of 70 are those that provide halic rulings. Interestingly enough, the Sanhedrin was to to use the both the American and the Israeli secular examples. The Sanhedrin was a combination of both a legislative function and a judicial function. They they were both they were Imagine you had a combination of a Supreme Court and a Knesset or a Parliament or a Congress. They did both because the Sanhedrin enacted legislation and they also interpreted the Torah as judges. The Melik would correspond with the chief executive. Right? So the Melik is the political leader. The Na'vi is the spiritual leader. The Sanhedrin are the halikic leadership. So I want to speak briefly about these different sources of authority and what lessons we can derive. First of all, this para is a very very important source of a fundamental concept in that is the concept of rabbitic authority. Right? Every student of understands right when you learn hala. So we use two terms. Some things are doa, some things are commanded by the Torah, and some things are only midra banan from the rabbis. In fact, if you were to factor out, take out of the Jewish religion all the things that are midra banan, you'd have a very, very, very different looking religion. So for example uh keeping the 39 mus of shabas is a Torah requirement. On the other hand not handling mah certain items we don't handle in chabas that's raana right. Uh lighting shabas candles is midra. Lighting kaneka candles reading migilla in fact reading the Torah reading the Torah is a rabbitic requirement. Now it's a very old rabbitic requirement. Creator and Shabbat is as old as Mosher Rabenu himself. But Mosher Rabenu was not given a commandment from God. Mosher Rabenu enacted it as being the Sanhedrin that would enact these things. Which means an interesting anomaly. You can have rabinicic laws that are actually older than Torah laws because certain Torah laws were not given to Moshe until the day of his death. Right? So I don't know what year Moshe enacted the reading of the Torah, but the point is the rabbitic law might have been earlier than the Torah law itself. So the big question that one needs to raise is the following. What is the source of rabbitic authority? Why do I have to listen to Raban? I mean after all does not the Torah itself says do not add on to the Torah. says in the Torah, "Do not add to the Torah and do not diminish." Now, if the rabbis give us all sorts of rules, why are they not adding to the Torah? And what is my obligation to obey rabbitic laws? Right? Why do I have to keep a drug on it? So, the Rambam answers that the Torah itself commands me to obey rabbitic laws. In this parha, the Torah says when it's describing the Sanhedrin, first there's a positive commandment and then there's a negative commandment in accordance with the Torah, the instruction that they give you, you shall do. And then it says it in the negative. do not depart from whatever they tell you to the right or to the left. One is tempted to maybe apply modern political categories meaning don't go to the right of don't go to the left of follow. So here's what the Rambam says in the negative commandment of low tassur as well as the positive the the Tyra Hashem Hashem is commanding you to listen to the laws that are enact. Therefore, every time you light Kaneka candles, even though obviously the Tory does not say, "Thou shalt light Kaneka candles." The whole story of Kaneka happened way after the Torah, but since the Torah said, "You shall listen to the takot of theim, then every time you listen to the takana of theim, you are obeying a writer. And if you violate a tak of theim, you are transgressing a del. And the Rambam says again based on Shabas that this explains how I can make a bra on a rabbitic. Let's look I light candles. So what does the braha say? Blessed are Jew Hashem, our God, the King of the universe. Okay, so far so good. He has sanctified us with his commandments and he has commanded us shall to light the candles of Kaneka. Question is very obvious. God has commanded us to light the candles of Kaneka. Where does God say I have to light the candles of Kaneka? This was a takana of theim. So the Rambam explains again based on a gammor and chabas indirectly by God commanding me to obey the rulings of the sages. So whatever they enact now becomes obligatory on a do level. You see now where did God command us to light candles from the puk low tassur. Now now again let me just explain a few points here. It's very important to understand that number one when we talk about listening to the rabbis the rabbis. Who are the rabbis? It's kind of a live issue right now in a lot of other things but but technically it's very narrow. Technically we are not referring to any rabbi. We are referring to the Sanhedrin which we don't even have today. That when the Sanhedrin makes a takically obligated to obey that takana and that takana becomes a dissa. Okay. So we're not talking about any rabbi right now. Uh the Tyra specifically is talking about the Sanhedrin also called the Bin Aado the supreme beten which is given the authority over the Torah Balpad. That's point number one. Point number two is it's very important that we differentiate different types of things the Sanhedrin does. There is, as I said before, both legislative activity and judicial interpretive activity. Legislative activity is quite literal. When the Sanhedrin by a vote passes a new law, they enact, they make a takana that we should light candles. They make a takana, we should read the book of Esther. This is legislation. This is theim are adding to the Torah. And the grant that gives them that power is loas. Loasur is the constitutional grant in the Torah that gives the power to make takot. Now the legislative activity of the sages can take two forms. One is a positive, one is a negative. And this goes by the phrase takonos versus gizeros. These are both rabbitic legislative activity. Takonote or takana is the singular that refers to positive things like lighting kaneka candles, reading migilla and the like. Gizeros are the very familiar negative idea of making a fence around the Torah. Don't do X because if you do X, you might come to do Y. A classic example would be the rule that even though under Torah law I'm not allowed to eat meat that is cooked in milk but under Torah I'm allowed to eat chicken that is cooked in milk under Tora law. But do not eat chicken and milk lest you come to eat meat and milk. This is the famous rule of making fences around the Torah. So again, rabbitic legislative activity can fall under either takanot or gazerro, but it's only rabbitic. But then there's a whole other role of the Sanhedrin and that is they have to interpret Torah law. In other words, a certain issue of whether something is covered. I mean, let's imagine a shila. And it could even happen today although we don't have a Sanhedrin so we don't have definitive resolution. Uh the Torah says you're not allowed to have fire on or make fire on chabas. So you immediately have a question well is electricity fire. So theoretically a Sanhedrin would adjudicate that. But when they're adjudicating it they're not legislating. They're not passing a new law. They are interpreting and applying the Torah. Now it's important to understand that when we say some laws are rabbitic and some laws are doa rebinic law the term rabbinic only applies to and when the interpret the Torah to cover a certain situation that is a dita that is not a okay so the dichotomy between dorita laws and rabinic laws uh will be the difference in takonos and gizeros versus judicial interpretation of what the is that will often be a data that's a very important distinction but the point that the ram is making is that even in the legislative area of gizot it becomes doa because of sour now the raam articul ates this idea in two places. Uh, one in the safer mitzvos, the book of the commandments, which is a an abbreviated treatment of the 613 mitzvos, where the Rambam discusses how every raan, every rabbitic law becomes a Torah law. And he also discusses it in the Mishna Torah, his larger code. in Hilos when he discusses those who rebel against the San Edin the Ramba makes the point that Takanote and Gizer that people sometimes dismiss as only Midan they're making a big mistake because every rabbinic law becomes a Torah law now on the safer which was written by the Rambam in Arabic by the way translated into Hebrew. So Ramban Rav Mosha bakman nakmanades of the next generation wrote extensive long comments on the Rambam safer mitzvah. In fact uh this is a very very fascinating limud uh to kind of learn the safer mitzvah of the Rambam with the commentary of Ramban and these criticisms. The briskar said the brisket said that he became a by analyzing these disputes. They're filled with depth and again just to see the two titans of Judaism arguing. Of course they're not speaking face to face. They didn't know each other. I mean the Ramban uh I think their lives did overlap but the Ramban was very young when the Rambam died. So they they didn't know each other in that way. But just the debates are very very beautiful. And on this rule in the safer amitzos that every rabbitic law is a Torah violation. The Ramban has a long long long series of questions. And let me just mention one of the questions that the Ramban raises. Everyone knows that there is a fundamental principle in called doa. That means any doubt that pertains to a Torah law you have to heir on the side of stringency. Conversely, if uh there's a doubt about a rabbitic law, a doubt, you can air on the side of giving yourself the benefit of the doubt. Let me give you a tangible example. Let's assume I don't remember if I dabbed mka today and it's still time. It's still time to dab. I don't remember. Since the requirement of three prayers a day is a rabbitic requirement at best. So if I'm not sure if I dve into mka or I didn't do in mina [Music] I'm lenient and I don't d I'm not allowed to d m again because it might be a blessing in vain. Now let's assume though I don't remember if I said the schma of the morning or the evening. I just don't remember. Now there the recitation of schma is a Torah requirement. So if you're not sure, you have to say it possibly a second time because when it comes to Torah laws, you have to be strict. If it's a rabbitic law, you're lenient. If it's a Torah law, you're strict. A bra before food is only rabbitic. We actually spoke about this a few weeks ago. So if I'm in the middle of a meal and all of a sudden I don't remember if I made a braha, I'm exempt because I don't remember. If however I ate my bread and I don't remember let's say if I benched. Now why I should forget these things that's another question I shouldn't but these are theoretical questions. I don't remember if I benched. So in such a situation you got to bench again because at least if you're full actually if you if you ate bread but you're not full it's it's also sub >> eat some more. Okay that would be the answer. Yep. Yeah. So this is a well-known principle. This is stated in the Gmorrah codified by the Rambam himself. But frack the Ramban the Ramban asks a very beautiful question. If you're telling me that any time the Rabana made a takana, if I violate that takana, I'm transgressing a Torah law. Then let's take the example of MKA. You're telling me if I don't remember if I dab in Mina so I can be lenient. Well, why? If I didn't, I will transgress the Torah commandment of so how could there so the Ramban asks on the Rambam how could there ever be a law of suff if every every daban gets transmuted into a dorita. So every time I am in doubt whether I kept the rabbitic law, I am in doubt whether I'm possibly transgressing the Torah commandments of low tassur because this is the Rambans Kasha and the Ramba. Good. Good question. The Kesv Mishna. Now again just to be sure everyone knows who this is. The Kesv Mishna is a commentary on the Rambam and it was authored by quite an illustrious person. The Kesv Mishna was the last book authored by Ravose Karo uh after he wrote the Bose on the Torah and after he wrote the Shan. The last thing he wrote was a commentary on the Rambam that is called KZF Mishna and it is printed in every virtually every edition of the Rambam and the Kess Mishna does many many things. He often gives sources because you know one of the big problems in in the Rambam is the Rambam gives you no sources for anything. So the km mission and other commentaries try to show you the talmudic source so you could check. In fact, it's interesting just as a little digression. The Rambam himself expressed regret that he didn't supply sources because there were times he couldn't remember. Uh we have we have inot respons of the Rambam that somebody would say hey I see this law here in the middle of somewhere says where did you get that? Now sometimes places are obvious right there are certain places in the Talmud that devote themselves to a particular topic. So it's going to be there. But the nature of the Talmud is such that anything could be anywhere. Meaning there may be a law of Shabbat that's all the way in or Nida or Kaducin or Giten. Right? And there was to know all the laws of Shabbat learning Shabbat is not going to tell you everything. Right? So there were times where the source was not so obvious that the Rambam himself says he didn't remember. He couldn't remember where he got it from. and he says he regretted not footnoting the Mishna Torah and the like. So the Ka Mishna gives sources uh but just to show you that no the sources are not complete. uh the the search for sources for the Rambam's rulings continues even today. Rafim Kineski wrote a book supplying sources that were not given by earlier uh authorities and there are people even after Rafim Kineski who are still looking for different sources. There are number of rulings of the Rambam that are very very obscure. So that's one thing. But other things the kessishna does which is an example I'm going to give you now is he tries to answer different questions than commentaries ask on the Rambam. And here he actually tries to answer this question again. What's the question? If as the Rambam states, every rabbitic law is if you don't keep it, you're violating a Torah law, then how can I say Raan, you're lenient? Every suffikan is a possible violation of low tassur, right? That's the Ramban's question. So says the Mishna, a beautiful really, really logical answer. Well, wait a second here. Lotasur says, "Do not violate the instructions you were given by the Sanhedrin." When you violate their instructions, their takanote, their gazeros, you're you transgress lots. But when you're in compliance with their instructions, you're certainly not violating Lotasur because you're listening to what they said. Now, who created the rule? that a suffach of a rabbitic law you're lenient. This was the rule of the Sanhedrin themselves. So you can't ask the question, well gee, if I don't remember if I d in mina, well if I didn't d in mka, I'm transgressing low tsour and it's a suffk of a dita. It's v not a suffic because the told you give yourself the benefit of the doubt. So when the told you you have the benefit of the doubt then low tassour disappears because you're now in full compliance with the rabbit. This is this is one of those answers once you hear the answer you're wondering about gee how could there be a question they tell the story the b you know the basale give you a much later example the basi was the first salvetic that was the rv of brisk his son the great rafim salvichek was very innovative creative the whole derk of advanced yeshivos in tamudic learning is directly or indirectly based on right is known for his amazing depth although his father was a tremendous god and gone in his own right. So the basi was enormously proud of his son you know rightfully so. Slavey once said, "What's the difference between me and my son?" He says, "People come to me and they ask me a question. They're so happy. It's a galdiga question. It's a deep question. It's a complicated question. And they're so excited that they have this great contradiction. And then I resolve the great contradiction with an ingenious insight." So he says, "So after this person talks to me, everybody's happy. He's happy because he asked a tremendously areaike question and I'm happy because I gave him a brilliant answer. That's me. But someone goes to my son Rafim Rafim shows him that your question really was not a question to begin with. If you truly understood this, there is no question. So if there's no question, there's no answer. So he says people walk away. So the guy who asked the question is wondering what was bothering me again. I don't really get what was bothering me and Rafaim said I didn't do anything. I just explained you know he said so the difference is and he was saying it with great affection with me everybody walks away happy with like nobody walks away happy because there was no question there was no answer just uh so sometimes an answer is so and that that actually is the sign of the best and the deepest answer to a question is to show that hey if you properly understood the concept there'd be no question at all. the case submission's answer is somewhat along those lines. Okay. So again I I obviously there's a lot of um detail here. I don't want to get into too many too many technicalities but it is very important to know that low tassur is the biblical source the Torah source for obeying rabbitic laws. uh if they are promagated by the Sanhedrin as we find in the Mishna and in the uh and in the atonement. Uh it's interesting that uh one of the great books on repentance that many people study during this time of year is the book Shar Chuva gates of repentance by Rabeno Yona. It's a classic work. It's available in u English translations, Hebrew adaptations, Hebrew commentaries, English commentaries. It's a book that's very worthwhile to to look at. Rabeno Yona actually says that not only are all Raban rabbitic laws Torah laws, but sometimes a rabbitic transgression might be worse than a doris of transgression. And he gives a very very fascinating analogy. The Torah has a special corban. If you commit certain sins inadvertently, let's say you desecrated Shabbat and you didn't know it was Shabbat yet, now the clock, you thought Shabbat was an hour later, right, etc. Or you didn't know you're not allowed to do a certain thing. That's called you violated Shabbat inadvertently. So the is when you recognize your sin, you bring a sin offering. This is called a corbanas. In the time of the basa mikdash you bring a corban katus for let's say desecrating shabbat bashog. Now what is the minimum value of that corban? No. It's a sheep. But know does it have to be a certain value? The answer is no. Uh even if the sheep is a thin sheep, an emaciated sheep, uh it only costs a dollar or two shekels, two zuzim like the goat of that's that's good enough. Okay. Now, there's another peculiarity. What if a person doesn't know that he sins? He's unsure. meaning like this. Let's say Shabbat begins a given day 6 p.m. So the case of a corpus would be I did mala 6:15 because I didn't know Shabbat began at 6. So I know after the fact I know that I sinned. I bring a sin offering. But what if I committed the Ara and I'm not sure what time it was. Was it 6:15 or was it 5 to6? I can't bring a sin offering because I don't know that I sent. So there's a peculiar corban that is called asham taloi. Asham taloy means a guilt offering in cases of doubt. And the way that works is you gain it's like a temporary insurance policy. You gain a certain measure of divine protection. But when you find out, if you find out, you got to bring a carbon k. So it kind of covers you until you find out. And if you never find out, then you're covered. But when you find out, even after the asham taloy, you got to bring the carbon kas. Now, here is what's strange. An asham taloy does have to have a minimum value. An asham taloy has to be worth two salim. That's a significant amount of money. Meaning you can't get by with a cheap offering. It has to have a minimum value. Now asks a very obvious question. When I'm in an asham tolli situation, the worst case scenario is I did a sin and in that worst case scenario, I can get by with a minimal offering. So how can the corban that I bring when I don't know that I sin require a higher value than the corban I bring when I know that I sin? I mean the worst case scenario of an asham tou is I did an aa so why would I have to bring a corbin that's more expensive than the corbin I bring when I know I did the a after the fact right it's a very good question how could anam to be more kamur than a corbanus offers a very very interesting psychological insight He says that part of the atonement that one gets for their aos is commensurate to the regret and the remorse that they have. The more you regret your aa the more you feel saddened I don't mean depressed but saddened and you're more motivated to correct the less of a punishment or repentance you need from heaven because you've absorbed your lessons. So Rabeno Yonga says when a person knows they've desecrated the Shabbat, their sense of regret and remorse is very powerful. And because the regret of the sense of regret or remorse is very powerful. They don't need such a penance. The Corbin can be cheap. But when you don't know that you sinned, so a person tells himself, ah, you know, it probably was 5 to 6, it probably wasn't five after six. A person doesn't feel so bad about it because he has all sorts of excuses there. Bedafka is where you need the higher level of atonement. Very interesting difference between the Corbanas and the Ashami. Soon wants to apply this to versus and you see this attitude all the time when somebody transgresses something that's in the Torah explicitly. So they naturally feel very bad. Their sense of remorse is greater and therefore they get a greater atonement. But when they transgress rabbitic law they say it's only it's only rabbitic not so important. that may put them in a worse position because specifically lacking the regret or the remorse you see uh they require a greater penance and a greater capara. So Rabeno wants to suggest that uh transgressing a rabbitic law may have worse consequences for a person precisely because they treat it with less respect and there's less regret and there's less. So it's true that theim gave us leniencies like safet. That's very very true. But other than that you have to respect these rabbitic laws and as the Rambam says they are based on Torah commandments. By the way as a little aside totally not relevant to the topic but since I mentioned Rabeno Yona I do want to record an interesting story. I mentioned Raenu Yona who was actually a nephew of Ramban wrote this classic work on the process of repentance. There's a story of why he did that. Um as you know uh there was a time in which a number of works of the Rambam were very very controversial and in some Jewish communities they were not accepted. Uh specifically, this was not the only one, but the the the one that was the most controversial uh was the Marinim, the guide to the perplexed, where the Rambam kind of tries to integrate or synthesize aspects of Arisatilian philosophy with Torah to either show their compatibility or point out their incompatibilities. And there were communities in France in particular that considered the be to considered this to be dangerous and heretical that why are you bringing in Aristotle? You might be causing religious Jews to be led astray, etc. And as a result, there were actually Jewish communities that put the guide to the perplexed in excommunication. They prohibited the book. And you'll sometimes read that they burnt the book. That that technically is not true. As far as I know, I might be wrong. I'm not aware of a Jewish community ever burning the book. But but the Catholic Church did burn the book. Once they saw that Jews themselves didn't like the book, they felt emboldened to burn the book. So indirectly, the Jewish communities caused the burning of the Morinim. Shortly after one of those book burnings in Paris, right outside the Notre Dame Cathedral, uh the Catholic Church burnt 24 wagon loads of Talmudic manuscripts. Now you have to understand this is around the 1200s. This is the 1200s. This is more than 250 years before the printing press. Allur were handwritten manuscripts. Imagine how many manuscripts you have in 24 wagon loads. This was virtually all of the Talmuds in the country of France. Destroyed. This destroyed France as a Torah learning center. You have to remember in the early middle ages France was the main Torah center of the world. Rashi was in France. Rashi didn't know Yiddish. Of course, Yiddish may not have been invented. It's not clear. Rashi does not speak Yiddish. Rashi spoke French. When Rashi translates words in the Humish, Rashi is using what today is known as old French. I mean, it wasn't called French in Rashi's time. That was the language, right? So Rashi's Rabenuam, Rashi's grandson, the Balatos, they're all French. France was the ikar makum Torah in the world. But what destroyed it? This burning of the 24 wagon loads of tool. So essentially the Torah centers moved to Germany and that got decimated with the Crusades to some degree earlier than that even and then eventually to Poland to Russia to Lithuania. It kind of left France. It never really returned to France. I mean Basham even today there are yeshiva star but but France is not an icker mum Torah in the world as it was in the time of Rashi. So this was an this was an awesome tragedy. In fact, if you have a good memory for the kinos, RA mayor of Renberg actually wrote a lamentation describing the burning of the Torah, the the Talmud really in France. It's actually memorialized on tishabove itself. Now the Gdollam of the time came to the conclusion that this was divine punishment for the burning of the books of the Rambam. that if the Jewish people cause such a disrespect to the Rambam's work mid mid uh you burnt the Rambam's books we're going to burn your books and therefore they felt they had to do chuva for the disrespect that they showed the Rambam of course let me point out uh you know the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe and uh I think around a decade ago or maybe a little longer. It suffered a great fire and the renovations were just recently completed. I think did Trump go it was a big delegation. A lot of leaders from all different countries came to the rededication. So people point out that Notre Dame was only a few yards from the burning of 24 wagon loads of Talmud in the 1200s. So it took more than 700 years for the midg mida to happen. Of course the story would have been better if Notre Dame had not been rebuilt. Again the story is less less dramatic this way. But at least at the time it was seen that that sura was a divine punishment. They say a similar idea which was much quicker. um Pompei, right? You know, the the famous Roman city of Pompei that was totally destroyed by um this uh eruption uh and uh volcano and people were literally literally like not frozen is not the right word, but they were immobilized in place. The Romans themselves, the Romans themselves, the Roman historians said this was God's punishment for destroying the Ba Mikdash a few years earlier. Uh they saw Pompei, the Romans wrote this. In fact, I I don't know if it's mentioned in Jewish sources, but in the Roman sources, they said this was God's punishment for the destruction of the temple. Of course, that happened only a few years after the destruction. Notre Dame, the fire happened many years later. So be it as I may going back to Rabenuona when Rabeno Yona was a young man he was involved in the anti- Rambam agitation and when he became aware of the burning of the Talmud he realized this was sinful behavior on his part and he resolved to do chuva and the chuva took two steps. One was to write a manual to help the Jewish people do chuva. that way that would be part of his chuva would be to teach the ways of chuva and the second part of his plan was he wanted to travel from Spain to Erit Israel to ask the Rambam's forgiveness at the Rambam's grave the Rambam as you know the Rambam lived in Egypt but the Rambam is buried in Tavaria uh so Rabenoa actually left Spain to go ask forgiveness at Rambam's Kev. Unfortunately, uh he died on the trip. He he himself did not make coming to Arat. But this is the story of the writing of Shah Chuba. Uh by the way, as another aside, forgive me for all the digressions. Why on earth is the Rambam buried in Taria? The Rambam died in Cairo, the old Jewish section of Cairo that was called Fustat. That was the part of Cairo that was the Jewish community. All right? So, the Rama wanted to be buried in Erit Israel. But again, if you're going from Egypt to Where Israel, you go up the Mediterranean coast. So, yushim is inland. That's true. But still, you shall uh even going uh going east is a shorter distance than going all the way to Tavaria. So, why is he buried in Tavaria? Yalaim would have been the logical place to be buried. So, legend has it, so I can't vouch for these stories. I don't know if they're true or not that the Rambam's coffin was on a wagon and it was being led by oxen and the oxen could not be stopped. They refused to stop until it went all is pretty far all the way north uh to Tvaria and that's when the oxen stopped and the Rambam was buried there. What is so special about Taria? Taria was the place of the last Sanhedrin. Remember the Sanhedrin of course during the second temple was of course located in Jerusalem. But after the Quran living in Jerusalem was not that safe. So there was a lot of migration to the Galile different parts of the Galil. The Romans were less persecuting in the Galile and the like. And the Sanhedrin moved to a number of locations. The toma tells us there were 10 different postjerus locations of the Sanhedrin. And the last stop before the Roman abolition of the Sanhedrin in the 4th century or the fifth century was Taria. And uh the Rambam is associated as not the Sanhedrin were the were the master interpreters of the oral law. And the Rambam was the codifier of the oral law and therefore minimum should be buried in the place of the Sanhedrin. Also of course in Tavaria is the grave of Rabi who is also considered to be the primary transmitter of the oral law. Uh there's a third well there's more than that but a third famous Kev which is much less definitively identified is the Ram Khalim Lutato is said to be buried in Tavaria but many say that is incorrect. Many say that he actually was buried in Ako. I'm not sure if the if a grave is marked in Ako with his name on it. I'm not sure. Uh but some say Ako was actually where he was. Taku at the time was a very not too many Jews today but it was a very important Jewish community uh at various times and that is wrong. The truth is there are uh you know there are a number of graves that are simply misidentified uh without getting into all of this uh what's called King David's tomb uh is almost certainly not the Kevl um that that's an identification that comes from the crusaders. The crusaders gave certain identifications based on nothing in particular and uh those identifications stuck even though they are absolutely not uh not accurate. Uh I mean based on both the the books of the Nim and Khaz where the kings of Mal Bubbin were buried actually Davidid would be the proper location around there not not on Mount S not on uh not on uh the place where King David's tomb is said to be say the Ramal suffered the same fate that somehow there was a misidentification again sorry for the uh sorry for the digression okay but now I want to go back a little bit and let's start off with the very first uh part of the puk. Uh it says there is a mitzvah to establish judges. So this is not just the Sanhedrin. This refers to local judges basins and cher is an enforcer like in modern Hebrew share is a policeman. So some point out the following you know there's no accident that paratim is always read uh usually the first shabas of sometimes the second shabas of if is and therefore and note as well that it's directed not and some say there's an important message that's being given here to an individual that when I look at my life. There are two functions I have to cultivate within myself. I have to cultivate within myself the notion of chauffet and I cultivate within myself the notion of chair. Now let's explain those functions. So again [Music] within your personality, develop the chauffet, develop the cha. And both of these are necessary stages in chuva introspection, spiritual accounting, chopet. What does a chauffet A chauffe a judge adjudicates guilt or innocence. A chauffe determines right or wrong. Right? There's a controversy. Who's right? Who's wrong? So the quality of chauffet pertains to what we call moral clarity. A person needs to have a very clear sense of what their values are. Actually actually what are God's values? But I have to know what is right, what is wrong, what are the directions I should be going in and what are the pathways I need to avoid. Now sometimes being a chauffe is relatively easy. It's wrong to kill. It's wrong to steal. It's wrong to commit adultery. Those are not difficult adjudications. Other times it's much more complicated. you know how do I fulfill you know ka of vim uh if my father is not able to drive you know do I take away the car keys you know these types of issues but we would say whatever the whatever the issue you're facing chauffet is the intellectual ability to identify right and wrong because that's what a judge does right and wrong moral clarity even in modern issues right this these are things that one could face uh for example there's a bit of a controversy and I I I do not want to get into politics so I'll just mention as a news story that uh a bunch of orthodox rabbis many of them I would not necessarily call orthodox but some I definitely would call orthodox they signed uh a letter 60 rabbis uh condemning Israel for the brutality in Gaza orthodox rabbi I signed such a letter saying that Jewish values require that we deal uh with the with the Arabs there uh with Palestinians with compassion, take care of them. And they quote all of the various texts, although I saw the most amazing thing. Yeah, this this would be funny if it wouldn't make you cry. Uh there was a group of reform people. They had some prayer service condemning the god the the the the so-called so-called Gaza massacre in I think it was in Washington and they had a woman I'm going to show Kisha a woman who's reading the Torah about how God blessed Ara to be the uh you know the source of blessing for the world but in the middle there's a puss that says to your seed I have given the land forever so this was I mean she you know she's reading these verses you know Uh, I will bless those who bless you. I'll curse those. And then she m then she literally mumbled and and when when she came to the pussk and I will give you the land she and then then she raised her voice again for the other puss and you know uh she did it twice because there are two verses kind of again. So whenever it came to the Jewish claim to Israel, you know, I guess I give her credit. At least she didn't she didn't skip the verse, but she she noticeably mumbled mumbled the verse. A total change in modulation. Okay. So that was one letter that was written. So then there's a counter letter written by other Orthodox rabbis saying that, you know, Israel's survival is at stake. We have to defend. Right? So in a sense you know these create the moral dilemmas in which you need what is called moral clarity because yes compassion is a Jewish virtue. There is no question about it. We don't uh rejoice in the suffering of anybody. On the other hand we have to have Jewish survival. We have to protect the Jewish people. Right? So shaets going back is the notion of trying to develop standards of right and wrong to have moral clarity. Obviously a person cannot do chuva until they understand what is right and what is wrong because until you know what is right and what is wrong you don't know what you need to correct. Ah but here is the thing being a chauffet is not enough. Moral clarity is not enough because even if a person clearly has the standards of right and wrong behaviorally they may not be strong enough to withstand the difficulties of temptation. I mean again you can give so many examples and I I don't I don't want mean my examples to be definitive. Let's say, God forbid, God forbid, someone has a child who is going to marry a non-Jew or a child that's going to have a gay marriage. Now, if you're a religious Jew, you know that these are forbidden unions. These are bad. You know you're not supposed to go. You know that in your mind, you know that, but it's your son. It's your daughter. How can you not be there? How can you not share in their joy? How can you not hug and dance? How can you not walk down the aisle? Now, this is not a problem of the chauffeet. The chauffeet in you knows what's right and what's wrong. But the problem is I don't have the discipline. I don't have the fortitude. By the way, again, my examples are are not are not meant to be. I'm just giving illustrations of where in a chuva process, it's not just intellectual clarity that you need. But one needs to develop internal fortitude. One needs to develop discipline. And sometimes in certain situations one needs to avoid triggers. Let's take another example. Anger, right? Let's say I have an anger problem. Whenever I meet a certain person, I just lose it. They infuriate me. I know that's not right. So the optimal solution is I work on my anger till I become a calm person who doesn't get upset. But that's pretty hard. So sometimes there's a short-term solution that you have to do tactically and that is avoid the interactions that push you over the edge. That is a showare. A showare a policeman right the best policemen don't punish crime. The best policemen prevent crimes from being committed in the first place. Right? So basically therefore the Torah is suggesting that you got to be a shet. You got to have the clarity of right and wrong. But then you have to create the strategies that will empower you and enable you to act on the basis of the commitments that you know are correct and that's a whole other thing. We have to understand this right. uh to avoid the situations that create triggers to have the discipline to make the decisions that are going to be hard decisions. Right? What drags us down is not is not always our lack of clarity. Sometimes there's a lack of clarity. Other times we know 100% what the right decision is. We're not able to act upon it. And that's where the policeman comes in. you got to have this internal policeman uh with with within you. So that's the chaim vaultim. Uh the final point I want to make is I I mentioned uh both last week and uh the beginning of the hour today the famous REM of Elliod Vidi. But interestingly enough there is a less well-known illusion to Elo that's actually in the Torah itself by Miklat Miklat is a city of refuge. Right? If a person kills inadvertently, so they go to the city of refuge and they remain there until the Coen God dies and when the Coen God dies, they then go free. That's whether he dies a day later or whether he dies 50 years later. It's a very strange type of sentence. Now miklad is written several places in the Torah including this para but the puk that alludes to by mlad happens not to be in this para but it's in parishim in the book of schmos and it says the following the person who did not premeditate his crime hashem has prepared a place for him. I have given you a place that you can run away to. So the words prepared for him and I I made for you again same thing. In other words, the month of El is alluded to as Mikl as a city of refuge. And the way it's explained is that just as there are cities of refuge in space, right? An ear mlad is a spatial area, there is a concept of an ear mlat in time. L is the city of refuge in time. What's the connection to Miklad? Miklad is for a very specific crime. the crime of murder, unintentional homicide. Why is ll a paradigm for that? And the answer is because in truth, every a is a form of suicide or murder. Because Hashem gave us life. And when we squander the life by not using the minutes, the seconds, the hours, the days in good ways, when you kill time, you kill life. So really all of us are guilty of murder or suicide. Lmi, we don't do it on purpose because here Miklat does not help for people who do it on purpose. We do it inadvertently. We do it carelessly. We do it without thought. We do it without appreciation. So the same way the one who kills inadvertently is given a city of refuge where they can contemplate and think and do chuva and repair. So the month of El is the city of refuge that gives us the ability to engage in this hesh. It is the way station the city of refuge and that's why the if the first rem of Elo is about divine love anod the second reference of Elo is this is a refuge where we can try to pull ourselves away from the distractions it's very difficult because the truth of the matter is I mean listen uh you know your schedule doesn't stop during yellow right I mean uh you go to school, you go to yeshiva, you go to work, whatever it is you're doing, you keep on doing it. But at the same time, we need to make some time. It's so interesting. There were great rabbis when he was when he would be asked like difficult questions during el he sometimes would answer. He says, "I'm so involved in the work of chuva that I'm not really able to to respond." uh there actually was that idea that you know I'm I'm too involved in these other things. We are not on that madrega but at least we should try to use a little bit of time time for that. So again, thank you. [Music] You see tomorrow [Music]