By now everyone has seen the Chasam Sofer at the end of Bechukosai that this year, תשׁפּ״א, is the year of מאשׁפּ״ת ירים אביון. Kein y'hei ratzon. I'm going to take that as my springboard.
Rashi on the first pasuk in chumash tells us:
שבתחלה עלה במחשבה לבראותו במדת הדין, ראה שאין יכול להתקיים, הקדים מדת רחמים ושתפה למדת הדין.
Hashem wanted the world to run based on midas ha'din -- R"H is the day of creation and the yom ha'din -- but that wouldn't work, so he put the midas ha'rachamim in there so we can survive.
That's the essence of R"H in a nutshell: infusing the din with rachamim.
The key is to earn that rachamim, because there are people who one is not permitted to show rachamim to:
Brachos 33a: וְכׇל מִי שֶׁאֵין בּוֹ דֵּעָה — אָסוּר לְרַחֵם עָלָיו, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״כִּי לֹא עַם בִּינוֹת הוּא עַל כֵּן לֹא יְרַחֲמֶנּוּ עוֹשֵׂהוּ״.
Mesilas Yesharim writes (section on zehirus):
אבל אם אינו מפקח הוא על עצמו, ודאי שהקדוש ברוך הוא לא יפקח עליו. כי אם הוא אינו חס, מי יחוס עליו. והוא כענין מה שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה (ברכות לג): כל מי שאין בו דעה אסור לרחם עליו. והוא מה שאמרו (אבות ג): אם אין אני לי מי לי.
If you can't show enough rachmanus on yourself to put your own house in order, to correct your daas, what right do you have to ask Hashem for his rachmanus?
Whatever you give to someone lacking in daas is a waste. You want Hashem to give you great parnasa -- for what, for a big vacation? You want Hashem to give you brains -- for what, to beat the stock market or come up with some business scheme? If you don't know how to use the gifts correctly, why should Hashem have rachmanus and give anything?
Someone who lacks daas, who you are not permitted to show mercy to, is called a poor person. The gemara writes (Nedarim 41) אמר אביי נקטינן אין עני אלא בדעה. Chazal say במערבא אמרי דדא ביה כולא ביה דלא דא ביה מה ביה דא קני מה חסר דא לא קני מה קני If you have intelligence, daas, then you have everything; if you lack it, no matter what else you have, it amounts to nothing.
There is something even worse than being an ani, and that's being an evyon. Rashi comments on לֹא־תַעֲשֹׁ֥ק שָׂכִ֖יר עָנִ֣י וְאֶבְי֑וֹן (Devarim 24:14) that evyon comes from the word avah=desire; he is תאב לכל דבר, he wants something, anything. An ani is the guy who throws your dollar back in your face because it's not enough of a donation; an avyon will not throw anything back because he wants and needs every penny.
The evyon in daas is ta'eiv for anything that seems to offer the promise of fulfillment, success, meaning. There are so many things in life you can latch onto that promise all that and more.
The navi (Amos 11:8) tells us that things will one day be so bad that people will be hungry and thirsty not for food and water but rather they will long for the dvar Hashem. What's so bad about that? The Ponivitcher Rov explained that when you are so thirsty and hungry, you will drink and eat anything -- you don't discriminate. People so desperate for spirituality, for meaning in their life, will take anything -- good torah or bad, truth or falsehood. In other words, they are evyonim -- ta'eiv l'kol davar.
Coming back to the Chasam Sofer, maybe he is telling us that this is our mission for the upcoming year. מאשׁפּ״ת ירים אביון Jews are the leaders of every -ism, of every do-gooder movement, of every march to make the world better. We are ta'eiv l'kol intellectual and "moral" davar. Our minds and our talent are thrown into everything. Time to lift up our daas and devote it to that which is true and real. Stop being an evyon, looking for anything and everything, and redirect that desire to better things.
Sefas Emes writes in the ma'amarim on Pesach (5646):
שמעתי מפי מו"ז ז"ל בפ' מאשפות ירים אביון להושיבי עם נדיבים. כי הקב"ה מקים ומרים הרצונות של בני ישראל המונחין באשפתות ומהפכן להתנדב רצונם אליו ית' כו'. ולבאר יותר כי חז"ל אמרו מעם אביון התאב לכל דבר. כי השפל בדעת תאב לכל דבר. אבל כשהקב"ה מאיר עיני האדם לדעת האמת. מואס ממילא בהבלי עולם.
Ashrei ha'am yode'ei teru'ah... Shofar is to wake up our daas. 21 days after R"H will will get to Simchas Torah and close out the holiday season with Atah hareisa la'daas. It's all about daas because using daas properly is the difference between being an evyon and having a rich, fulfilled year.
The gemara (R"H 16) asks: רבי יצחק למה תוקעין בר"ה Why do we blow shofar?
Answers the gemara: what kind of question is that? !למה תוקעין? רחמנא אמר תקעו
Rachmana = the Torah said to blow, so we blow. Torah always referred to by Chazal as Rachmana because it's Torah that gives us daas, that lifts us out of the improvised life of the mental ani v'evyon, מאשׁפּ״ת ירים אביון, so that we can earn rachamei shamayim.
Sefas Emes R"H 5664:
עיקר השופר לעורר רחמים בזכות התורה דאיתא עלה במחשבה לברוא במדה"ד וראה שאין העולם מתקיים ושיתף עמה מדה"ר. זה התורה דאיתא מי שאין בו דעת אסור לרחם עליו. והקב"ה בחסדו נתן לנו התורה שנזכה לדעת ועי"ז מרחם עלינו. לכן נק' התורה רחמנא בגמ' שכל הרחמים בא בכח התורה. וע"ז נאמר אתה הראת לדעת שחונן לנו הקב"ה דעת התורה. וזהו יודעי תרועה בדעת. וכן כתיב מדי דברי בו כו' רחם ארחמנו. ולכן על ידי השופר עומד מכסא דין ויושב על כסא רחמים:
I could write Chasam Sofers and Sefas Emes all day and night and somehow, for me at least, an ani b'daas, it does not pull me into the Y"T mindset as much as the great Hillel Palei does:
The CS uses a gematria. He doesn't say anything about years. Just that there are two adjacent gematrios: 5760 has symbolism of Sama'el and Lilis, and 5761 -- sweeping out that garbage. Problem is, for all our whining about how bad 5760 was, from synagogue shooting in Halle, to fatal anti-Semitic attacks in the NY area, to covid to …. We are spoiled. This year hasn't been demonically bad compared to most of the exile. For all the people sadly lost to CoVID -- including the rebbe who taught me how to make a leining in gemara and then his father going during the week of shiv'ah -- the death rate and the average age of those dying in 5780 was lower than was typical in most generations. No world war. The usual levels of genocide. It we merit it, we might be seeing significant steps toward peace in the Middle East. Even through all our troubles, there is much angelic about this year. And even the stuff one might blame on the demons, it shows us how blessed our generation's normal year is. So what evil is it of this year we're expecting swept out in the next? Beyond the usual "tikhlheh shanah veqililoseha" of every year.
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful 5781. Among all the things our generation was blessed with, we have our own government in Israel for the first time since the Chashmonaim. We have more people studying Torah than ever before. Since Sinai. We are a nations whose lives stop when a single Jew is taken by Russia or held POW in Azza, and we all refer to the victim by their first name -- like a brother or sister in trouble who is all we can think about. We have more reason to believe that by the end of this year our lives will be overturned by a man who rides a donkey than at any time before.
Rabbi Matis Bloom?
DeleteInterestingly, R Wolbe (Alei Shur vol 2, sec. 1, ch 14) contrasts "frumkeit", which he describes as doing all the rituals out of a natural instinct to be holy, with true Avodas Hashem, which he says is acting out of da'as. Instinct is inherently self-oriented. My survival. Or in this case, my sanctity. Not "is Hashem's Will being expressed in the world"? A frum person is upset when someone else supports the poor first. And as the Alter of Slabodka is quoting as teaching, "ve'ahavta lerei'akha kamokha" doesn't mean loving another Jew because it's a mitzvah. No one loves themselves because it's a mitzvah. Avodas Hashem means doing what right because we use our da'as and end up wanting what's right.
ReplyDeletethe "many things" "that promise" "fulfillment, success, meaning" "and more", were latent in one wrong goal, in one grand misuse of "daas": 'come, let us make bricks; come, let us build a tower...'.
ReplyDeletewhen the fallout came, while a confusion of promises spread across the many, one man* among them could hear only a shofar, more and more...
*Avraham