Sha’ar 2:10: Complete Acceptance of Yoke of Heaven

Good morning Rabosei. Zeh haderech hashlishi: כאשר ישמע מוסר החכמים והמוכיחים. When a person hears the teaching, the words of the chachamim and mochichim, Yaksiv, veyishma, veyikona. Yaksiv refers to just the auditory process of hearing the words. Yishma is to understand. Shma Yisrael, שמע בכל לשון שאתה שומע, Chazal say, means to understand. Veyikona, it has an impact upon the person, an appropriate sense of hachna'ah. And then veyashuv betshuva. And that in that state, in that mindset of hachna'ah, a person is then positioned to be chozer betshuva. It's both prerequisite as well as the substance of tshuva, this sense of hachna'ah that we need to have. ויקבל בלבו כל דברי התוכחות ושלא יגרע דבר מדבריהם. Rabbeinu Yonah emphasizes, excuse me, Rabbeinu Yonah emphasizes the need to be מקבל כל דברי התוכחות, not to dismiss any of the points that the mochichim bring to the surface. So on one level, the pshat would seem to be if I have 20 chato'im and the chachamim, the mochichim point out all 20 to me, the only way I'll be doing a full tshuva is if I accept all 20 points of rebuke. And that's why ויקבל בלבו כל דברי התוכחות ושלא יגרע דבר מדבריהם because otherwise the tshuva will be incomplete. But it seems quite clear that Rabbeinu Yonah means much more than that. The difference between my accepting 19 of the 20 points that the mochichim make and being mekabel all 20 is much more than a quantitative difference of one point. If a person's not מקבל כל דברי התוכחות, if a person is gore'a davar midivrehem, it's not just quantitative, but qualitatively that קבלת עול מלכות שמים, that commitment to tshuva is very different. It means that what's convenient or what's not that difficult, I'm willing to aim for change there. But the very minute we pick and choose, this mitzvah I'll do, this mitzvah okay maybe another time, maybe that will that maybe that will make it to my to-do list another time. So basically what it means is that even the mitzvah I put on my list is not really there with the proper קבלת עול מלכות שמים, with the proper Kabbalas Ol Mitzvos. And it's entirely possible, even likely, that the way that translates ultimately is not only that the person will only have 19 out of the 20, but he's not going to have much to show for it in terms of the 19 either. There has to be this fundamental, axiomatic commitment to do what's right, to live al pi Torah, to try and be medakdek b'mitzvos. When a person is מקבל כל דברי התוכחה, doesn't eliminate, doesn't cross anything off the list, so then that person has made a genuine, deep commitment. The very minute where we're selective, we pick and choose, it's not only quantitatively that the commitment is different, but qualitatively the commitment is superficial. And that's why והנה האיש הזה ברגע קטן יצא מאפלה לאור גדול. Because the commitment is unqualified, the commitment is fundamental. So a person can in a moment change and become transformed and go from the darkness of night to the brilliance of a noon-day sun.

כי עת אשר יאזין ויסכת לבבו יבין ושב ויקבל ביום שמעו דברי המוכיח ויקיים עליו להיות עושה ככל אשר יורוהו,

again that same emphasis, right? Rabbeinu Yonah reiterating k'chol asher yoruhu

תופסי התורה מן היום ההוא ומעלה ולהזהר כאשר יזהירו ידי בינה לעתים

also be'yado hateshuva v'nehepach l'ish acher. So the teshuva is already accomplished through that moment. Again, it's a very profound moment of change and resolve, but in that moment also be'yado hateshuva, already then the teshuva has been achieved. Well what does Rabbeinu Yonah emphasize the v'yekabel b'yom shomo? And again if the phrase were missing, we wouldn't have noticed it, right? If Rabbeinu Yonah had written v'yekabel divrei hamochiach, l'mai nafka mina? Nafka mina if I heard the shmuze on Monday, it's a nafka mina whether or not my resolve was on Monday or whether it's on Tuesday or Thursday or l'mai nafka mina? So we all know from personal experience that the power of an experience weakens as time passes. When we initially experience something, in this context, the experience of hearing a shmuze... The force of those divrei mussar v'tochachah are at their peak, at their zenith. And human nature is such, gradually, it weakens. If b'yom sham'o, when a person is most affected, when he's exposed to the full force of the divrei mussar, hisorerus, v'chizuk, he then, at that moment, translates the hisorerus into a commitment. He channels it then into a commitment. So then it's conceivable and possible that ברגע קטון יצא מאפלה לאורה גדולה. But for that dramatic change to happen in a moment, a person needs to tap into the full force and energy of the divrei hachachamim, of the divrei, of the tofsai hatorah. And that's the emphasis on b'yom sham'o. Maybe one last comment for this morning, ולהזהר כאשר יזהירוהו יודעי בינה לעיתים. Right, so the pasuk yodei binah l'itim, I think we had Rashi quotes it about, where is it, in V'zos Habracha, Vayechi, both, about Shevet Yissachar, that they were the experts on the calendar and the ibur hashana and the kevius hachodashim. Klal Yisrael relied on Shevet Yissachar, who were supported by Shevet Zevulun. They were the yodei binah l'itim. But obviously that's not the sense of the phrase here in context in Rabbeinu Yonah. So why is Rabbeinu Yonah borrowing this phrase of yodei binah l'itim? Maybe what Rabbeinu Yonah is conveying in that phrase, I think Rav Pinkus writes in the hakdamah to one of his seforim, maybe it's the one on tefillah, I'm not sure which of the seforim it is, I don't remember now, that every generation, no matter how great and classic seforim of previous generations are, every generation needs to translate into terms and categories that they relate to. משל למה הדבר דומה, right, if you take a look at English translations from 60, 70 years ago, they don't resonate for us today. And lich'ora the pshat is that it's not necessarily that they were inferior translations. Every generation has its own idiom, its own rhythm, and that's not only true linguistically, it's true in a much deeper sense as well. Perhaps what Rabbeinu Yonah is intimating here is that the chachamim, the mochichim, the tofsai hatorah, in giving the azharos have to have a sense for their generation. The type of divrei mussar, the type of divrei hadrachah. that one would have given twenty-five years ago is not necessarily going to be appropriate or effective today. And the type of divrei mussar, divrei hadracha that we look to receive today may not be something that can just be literally repeated or transposed in twenty, twenty-five from years from now either. The hadracha has to come from the yodei bina l'itim. Yodei bina l'itim, they understand the generation, they understand the problems of the generation, they understand the struggles of the generation, they understand the weaknesses of the generation. Torah doesn't change, but different generations are characterized by and sometimes even defined by different challenges within Torah. What in one generation within Torah is a part of Torah but not the defining challenge, in another tkufa, in another generation can be the defining challenge of that generation. So the divrei mussar, the divrei hadracha, the divrei azhara have to come from yodei bina l'itim. Okay, we'll stop here and בלי נדר אם ירצה השם continue around eleven-thirty, eleven-thirty with Orchos. Okay, rabosai, im yirtze hashem.