Unapologetic Judaism

Dinan Hakadosh Baruch Hu maniach tefillin shene'emar נשבע ה' בימינו ובזרוע עזו biyemino zu Torah uvizroa uzo elu tefillin. Chazal say kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu puts on tefillin.

אמר ליה רב נחמן בר יצחק לרב חייא בר אבין הני תפילין דמרי עלמא מה כתיב בהו?

So if kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu puts on tefillin, so they too are going to have four battim and they're going to be parshiyos in the battim. Well, what's written in the parshiyos? So amar lei ומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ. So asks the Gemara ומי משתבח קודשא בריך הוא בשבחייהו דישראל. And that kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels praised when he hears the praises of Klal Yisrael. Kavyachol, just as a parent feels praised and gratified when they hear someone recounting the praises of their child, so kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu has that sense of pride in Klal Yisrael. עבדי אתה ישראל אשר בך אתפאר. What's clearly being presented in this Gemara with the metaphor of Hakadosh Baruch Hu putting on tefillin, with Hakadosh Baruch Hu's the parshiyos in Hakadosh Baruch Hu's tefillin all speaking of shivchayhu de-Yisrael is again kavyachol a certain reciprocity. Our tefillin שמע ישראל ה' אלהינו ה' אחד, Ribbono Shel Olam's tefillin ומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ. So it's clear that again, just as kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu takes pride, he's proud of his people Yisrael, so too we're supposed to be proud of our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, our connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, of Torah, of being a ben Torah. התהללו בשם קדשו, you should be praised because of your connection, because Shem Kodsho is associated with you. If a person has a professional, a prestigious professional affiliation, or maybe still at the student level it's not a professional affiliation, maybe depending upon the year he's in attends a university which is one of US News's top 50 universities, so a person rightfully, naturally, understandably feels a sense of pride. We should be tremendously, immensely proud of being the Am Hanivchar, of being bnei Torah, of being bnei Yeshiva. But pride implies that a person has a sense of confidence. Dovid Hamelech in תהלים קיט among other places emphasizes

אז לא אבוש בהביטי אל כל מצותיך ואדברה בעדותיך נגד מלכים ולא אבוש.

A person is not embarrassed because a person has a sense of confidence, a sense of confidence, a sense of conviction in Torah, in truth of Torah. A person can comply with mitzvos ha-Torah, a person can comply with the Torah's practical mandate but not necessarily feel that deep, profound sense of conviction in. Rambam writes that what תמים תהיה עם ה' אלקיך means is not only that we practically comply, but the sense of being tamim, complete with Hakadosh Baruch Hu is that not only with our bodies we comply, but with our minds and with our hearts we're convinced of the truth of Torah. Perhaps every, every generation deals with the challenge, ours certainly does. We live surrounded by people who don't necessarily, perhaps because they don't have the background, they don't have the sensitivity, they don't have the education, for whatever reason, but we live often and we encounter people who don't understand or appreciate Torah teachings and values. And of course the response should be to try to help them understand, to try to enlighten them, to try to sensitize them, but never with a sense of being defensive, never with a sense of being apologetic. Whatever the issue or issues may be that people don't understand, don't appreciate, that people feel out of sync, אדברה בעדותיך נגד מלכים ולא אבוש, a person always has to hold his head high in speaking directly, simply, honestly what the truths of Torah are. In the workplace a person shouldn't look to downplay who he is, what he is, what he stands for. Not to be ostentatious, not to be, not, not to be confrontational, not to be aggressive, but a person shouldn't be looking to hide who he is, what he is, what he stands for. The yarmulke shouldn't be any, any smaller in the workplace. If one's minhag and one's, one's kabbalah is that one wears one's tzitzis out, they should be out. One should be proud of who one is, of what one is. Proud and confident. This is true of one's connection, one's association with Torah and Avodas Hashem bichlal. But it's also true and should be felt and experienced with regard to one's connection to one's individual masorah. Within Torah there are different legitimate derachim. Not everything which people package as a legitimate derech is necessarily so. But even after filtering that out, of course it's the case that there are, that there are different derachim within Avodas Hashem. And within Avodas Hashem, people have different masoros, with much, much in common, but also with, with differences, also with individuality. And that same sense of pride, to use 19th-century categories, one can have, one can have a masorah of the ba'alei mussar, one can have a masorah, misnagdishe masorah, not from the ba'alei mussar, one can have a Chassidishe masorah. And whatever one's masorah, that same sense of hisalelu and that same sense of az lo eivosh, the sense of, of pride, the sense of confidence, one should have that in, in one's derech and masorah that one received. And that's true when we update the descriptions and the characterizations to תשע"ג. Again, there are different, different legitimate derachim within Avodas Hashem and that sense of confidence and that sense of pride is one that we should feel and experience. Again, not announce, but it should just naturally be apparent. A person is a person has a sense of confidence and a person has a sense of pride, one sees it in his demeanor, one sees a sense of comfort with himself and his life. When this sense of confidence and this sense of pride are present, it translates into and it generates a sense of simcha. התהללו בשם קדשו ישמח לב מבקשי השם The Maggid Mishneh in commenting on the Rambam's famous words at the end of Hilchos Lulav where the Rambam writes

השמחה שישמח אדם בעשיית המצוה ובאהבת הקל שצוה בהן עבודה גדולה היא.

It's a very great and central expression of avodas Hashem that a person experiences a sense of simcha in fulfilling mitzos, a sense of simcha associated with the ahava for Hakadosh Baruch Hu who commanded the mitzos. Ikar hadavar hu says the Maggid Mishneh

שאין ראוי לאדם לעשות המצוה מצד שהן חובה עליו והוא מוכרח ואנוס בעשייתן.

A person can do mitzos, but he can do mitzos begrudgingly, he can do mitzos insecurely, he can do mitzos without a sense of pride and fulfillment. אלא חייב לעשותם והוא שמח בעשייתן. But the correct posture, the correct modality of a life of Torah and Mitzvos is that a person has a sense of simcha in fulfilling mitzos and has this deep-seated conviction ויעשה הטוב מצד שהוא טוב. And he does good knowing that what the Torah identifies as tov is, of course, in fact, the real and only ultimate tov, v'yivchar b'emes and a person chooses what the Torah identifies as אמת מצד שהוא אמת. Because it's true. When we approach Torah and Mitzvos with that attitude, again, that sense of confidence, of pride, which generates a sense of simcha, so then yokal b'einav tarchon. So then what can otherwise seem arduous and what can otherwise be enervating, it becomes easy and on the contrary, it becomes energizing. ויבין כי לכך נוצר. And a person will understand, oh, I discovered what life is all about. I recognize the purpose for which I was created, l'shamesh es kono. וכשהוא עושה מה שנברא בשבילו, and when a person does, when a person is living for that purpose for which he was created, yismach v'yagel. Then he can truly rejoice. לפי ששמחת שאר דברים תלויה בדברים בטלים שאינן קיימים. Everything else which masquerades as simcha really is linked to things which are ephemeral and transient.

אבל השמחה בעשיית המצות ובלמידת התורה והחכמה היא השמחה האמיתית.

This is the genuine and enduring simcha. As the countdown or up, as the case may be, to Shavuos continues, we look to be mekabel Torah not only with a sense of obedience, kabbalas ol mitzos and קבלת עול מלכות שמים in that sense, but with a sense of confidence in amittah shel Torah, a sense. sense of pride in hishalelu b'sheim kodsho and an overwhelming sense of simcha.