Healthy and Productive Living

Parshas Ki Savo

Elul / Rosh Hashanah

Posted on September 8, 2017 (5779) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

 Could a Shofar be blown in a city and the people not tremble in fright?! (Amos 3:6)

Rav Sadiah Gaon offered ten different messages of the Shofar. Amongst them is included, 1- A reminder of the Yom HaDin, the day of ultimate judgment. 2- The sound of the Shofar signals the day when the Jewish People will be gathered in again from various lands of exile. 3- The Shofar is portends the time of the revival of the dead. 4- The Shofar is also a haunting reminder of the destruction of the Temple, and when our enemies triumphantly blew Shofar. 5- The Shofar is connected with the near sacrifice of Yitzchok and the ram that was as his replacement. 6- The Shofar reminds us of the corrective words of the Prophets. 7- The Shofar hearkens back to the sounds surrounding the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. 8- The Shofar alerts us that The King is making a decree and this is His warning. 9- The Shofar heralds the presence of the King in the Midst of His coronation. The King is being inaugurated. 10 – The Shofar is meant to inspire fear. About this the Prophet Amos said, “Could a Shofar be blown in a city and the people not tremble in fright?!”

 

If the Shofar is meant to create an experience of fear, then the question is about how we spend our on this day of awe. We are happily eating and drinking and rejoicing. How can we afford to be so relaxed when there is so much to be serious, real serious about?!

 

Here are few approaches and I am certain there are many more. In order to have fulfilled our requirement of listening to the Shofar on Rosh HaShana it is necessary that one hears a combination of three sounds. There is a straight sound- Tekiah that is followed by some combination of two or one of a sobbing sound -Shvarim and a staccato –

Truah sound followed once again by the straight Tekiah. The pattern is straight and then broken and then straight.

 

One hint here, one implied message is that while on the inside a person is shattered and trembling with awe he must still conduct himself outwardly with joy and calmness. This is part of the art of living a normal life with HASHEM deep in hearts while conversing with the world.

 

I remember that when I was in Yeshiva, one day during the month of Elul I was walking past a Rabbi who noticed my dour and ultra-serious expression. He asked me, “What’s wrong?” I answered in on word, “Elul!” He told me, “Elul is for the Rishus HaYachid –the private domain, inside your heart. Your face, however, is the Rishus HaRabbim- the public domain.”

 

I was at a principals’ convention and we had the honor of hearing Rabbi Michel Twerski from Milwaukie. I was overawed by his presentation. There was one thing he said just as the lecture was beginning which was like a throwaway line and not his main topic at all. I’m certain it slipped unnoticed beneath the radar but this chunk of wisdom caught my attention big time.

 

There was so much depth and poetic wisdom in this one subtle phrase. He said in a slow and thoughtful almost hypnotic tone, “People ask me if I get scared before I speak. I have been doing this for more than 50 years. I still get butterflies, but by now the butterflies are flying in formation.”

 

Fear is good. Before speaking I am only afraid if I’m not afraid. That fear cannot be a paralyzing or debilitating fear but rather a fear that is sublimated and channeled into healthy and productive living.

 

The Root Of Unhappiness

Parshas Ki Savo

Posted on September 2, 2020 (5780) By Rabbi Yochanan Zweig | Series: Rabbi Zweig on the Parsha | Level: Intermediate Beginner

“Because you did not serve Hashem, your G-d, with happiness and goodness of heart, when you had everything in abundance”(28:47)

 

The Torah attributes all of the horrific curses which will befall Bnei Yisroel to not serving Hashem with happiness. The complaint is not that we will not serve Hashem, rather, although we will serve Him, the stress is upon the fact that it will not be done with happiness. Citing the Zohar, the Ramban teaches that the admonition in this week’s parsha refers to the period of the second Beis Hamikdash through its destruction and the subsequent exile.¹

 

The Talmud states that the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of “sinas chinam” – “baseless hatred”.² This would appear to contradict the reason offered by the Torah, that the destruction was precipitated by Bnei Yisroel’s not serving Hashem with happiness. How do we reconcile this contradiction?

 

The Torah attests to the fact that we were unhappy, even though we had everything. This is mirrored by the contemporary phenomena which finds a high percentage of depressed and disenchanted people to be those who enjoy success and high social standing. Why do people who apparently have everything that life has to offer, still exhibit a lack of happiness?

 

A person can only be truly happy if he appreciates what Hashem has given him. However, if a person is egocentric, considering himself deserved of all that he has, he will not be content by that which is already his; rather, he will be focused on those things which are not yet his, but to which he feels entitled. If a person goes through life with the attitude that everyone owes him, he will constantly be miserable, never satisfied with what he has. Furthermore, since he feels he is entitled to everything that he desires, a person who has something he desires becomes an immediate threat to him. He begins loathing that person for no reason other than the perception he maintains that that person is withholding from him an object which should rightfully be his. It is this type of loathing that the Talmud defines as baseless hatred.

 

Consequently, baseless hatred can be traced back at its inception to our lack of appreciation for what Hashem has done and continues to do for us. Therefore, sinas chinam is not a different reason than the reason offered by the Torah as to what precipitated the destruction of the Temple; it is a manifestation of being unhappy when serving Hashem.

 

1.28:42 2.Yoma 9b

 

Jewish History and the Farmer

Parshas Ki Savo

Posted on September 2, 2020 (5780) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

I have in earlier years written about the strange requirement that the Torah imposes upon the Jewish farmer in the land of Israel when he brings his first crop of the year to Jerusalem as an offering in the Temple. However, I want to reiterate and expand on the matter once again in this short article because I believe it to be of vital and relevant importance to us in our times.

 

The Jewish farmer, in a review of Jewish history, recounts as to how he arrived at bringing this offering to the temple. He relates the story of our forefathers, of Abraham and Jacob and of their struggles to survive in a very hostile environment.  He explains how the great and essential idea of monotheism, morality, charity, and godliness in human society was propagated. The one bringing the offering then recounts the fact that we have never had an easy road on which to travel. Our forefathers were enslaved in Egypt for centuries and sank to low levels of physical and spiritual standards. Yet, the Lord redeemed us and took us out from the house of bondage through miraculous events under the leadership of Moshe.

 

We were granted the Torah and we were entrusted with the mission to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. We wandered in the desert for 40 years, sustained only by the will of heaven, and finally arrived in the land of Israel, a land promised to us through our forefathers by the G-d of Israel. And now, as a fulfillment of this drama of Jewish history, the farmer can bring these first crops of the year to Jerusalem, as an offering in the temple.

 

There is an innate desire within all human beings to know about their past. At one time or another, all of us experience the feeling of déjà vu, about events and places that we know we have never been to before or have never experienced in this lifetime. It is this sense of history, of the past that imposes itself upon us. Unfortunately, most Jews in our time are completely unaware of their past. They have no idea as to their ancestry, traditions and the events that have led them to where they are and who they are today. In that ignorance lies the main cause for the alienation and disaffection of so many Jews as to their faith and future.

 

They are overwhelmed by the present and fearful of the future simply because they are ignorant of their past. This engenders a feeling of panic and uncertainty that gnaws at the very vitals of their existence. This is especially true here in Israel, now almost 75 years after its creation and founding, the state is still taken for granted and has lost some of its luster. It is no longer treasured as it once was and should be.  To sanctify the mundane – to make even the produce of this country into a holy offering – knowledge and appreciation of the past is necessary. This is an important lesson that this week’s reading imparts to us.

 

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein