Toras Chayim: Living Al Kiddush Hashem

כי בו את הנחת עטרת לנו ה' אלוקינו תורת חיים.

Toras Chaim means a Torah that provides life. Torah provides life in Olam Hazeh כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו, Torah provides life in Olam Haba וחיי עולם נטע בתוכנו. But Toras Chaim also means a Torah that we live by. A Torah that addresses every every facet of our lives. A guide. Every area of life Torah regulates and thereby elevates. Torah regulates our professional lives. If a person is in business, Torah tells us how to conduct business. A person is a farmer, he works the land, the Torah tells us how to farm. Torah regulates our personal lives. What the reciprocal responsibilities are between husband and wife. אלו מצוות הבן על האב מצוות האב על הבן. And the Torah certainly regulates our bein adam lamakom, how we directly relate to Hakodosh Boruch Hu. But part of Toras Chaim also is that the Torah not only addresses and regulates every area of life, the Torah also regulates every occasion. There's no occasion in a person's life, there's no such thing as as there being an occasion where the Torah doesn't provide us with direction and instruction how to how to react. And this is true for the entire spectrum of human experience. It's true at at one end of the spectrum of simcha, the Torah tells us what's what's an occasion for simcha, how to be somei'ach, how to rejoice. And the Torah also tells us, rachmana litzlan, how to react to how to react to tragedy, how how to be misabel. The horrific massacre last Shabbos. Tragedy, aveilus, hamachayev in cheshbon hanefesh and and in teshuvah. Cheshbon hanefesh is it isn't an attempt to answer the unanswerable why. But the cheshbon hanefesh is to answer the practical question of what. What collectively are we, each one of us b'reshus hayachid in his reshus hayachid, what individually am I supposed to do to to do teshuvah to improve? So we're not looking to identify causes but to identify areas of of improvement where where we need to improve again, both collectively as well as each one of us individually. And that's why that as long as the cheshbon hanefesh is done carefully in a religiously healthy, balanced, emotionally healthy, balanced way, so the there are no wrong answers. When one is looking to for a cause, so then how does one know that one one hits upon the right answer? If a person is looking not to identify cause, not to answer the unanswerable why, but a person is looking to identify what. What is my cheshbon hanefesh uncover? What is the collective cheshbon hanefesh uncover? Where is there room to do teshuvah? So then as long as the cheshbon hanefesh is done, again, in a religiously healthy and and responsible way, there there are no wrong answers. Maybe to just suggest two obviously not by no means exhaustive answers to to the what question on the collective level. Clearly, the effect of of what happened last Shabbos on a very prosaic, mundane level, it exposes our vulnerability. Even if this were even if there were no broader Broader context to what happened, the fact that something like this happened once can only make us feel tremendously vulnerable. When it happens in the context of the wave of antisemitism which is engulfing Europe, when it happens in the context of an uptick of albeit less dramatic antisemitic incidents here in the US, it certainly exposes and underscores our vulnerability. Both the Maharal and later Rav Soloveitchik explain that tefillah, the essence of tefillah is a person feeling and expressing that sense of vulnerability. A person davens because a person recognizes his total and absolute dependence and his total and absolute vulnerability. When you ask someone to do something for you, so leaving aside laziness as a possible motivation, but the only reason to ask someone else to do something for you is when you can't do it yourself. What a person can do for himself, he doesn't have to look and and try to enlist the help of others. We turn to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for anything and everything, so the significance of that bakashah is because there's a recognition, there's an acknowledgment that we're in touch with and we're expressing our fundamental dependence and vulnerability. When things are happening around us and so close to home, so close to home, which heighten the vulnerability, clearly one correct response, not the only correct response but one out of many possible correct responses is to be mischazek in the avodah of tefillah. That translates in many different ways but just to suggest one way in which it translates, how much time should be allotted to tefillah? As much time as tefillah takes. It can't be that there's a box in my schedule that I have so much time for davening. I want to sleep till a certain hour, I want to get to seder by a certain time and after I cheshbon everything else I have to do, so then that determines how much time is available for tefillah. How much time should be available for tefillah? As much time as it takes to daven properly, as much time as it takes to say the words thoughtfully and carefully. That's how much time we should make in our schedule for tefillah. Whatever hishtadlus is appropriate, I'm sure will be done, is being done, but to sort of emphasize hishtadlus and not and not have the accompanying tefillah is עיקר חסר מן הספר. Another area of what in terms of our collective cheshbon hanefesh, any any act of antisemitism accentuates our Jewishness and our Jewish identity. When some rasha goes and paints a swastika on whether it's a private Jewish home, whether it's some public Jewish building, so in a very, very sinister and threatening way that act of antisemitism accentuates our Jewishness. Clearly what that suggests as a middah k'neged middah response on the what level is that we should be accentuating our Jewishness, not in some confrontational way, not in some gratuitously flaunting. just in terms of the dikduk bamitzvos, in terms of זהירות במצוות קלות כבחמורות, and trying to share that as much as we can. And that our Jewishness should be accentuated, but in the form of Avodas Hashem, not not in the hands of of of our sonim. This Shabbos, im yirtzeh Hashem, marks the fourth yortzeit for the Kedoshei Har Nof, chof-hei Cheshvan. So perhaps just to share one thought about inyonei Kiddush Hashem to mark that anniversary. The Rambam both in Sefer Hamitzvos as well as in Perek Hei, Yesodei HaTorah, says that there are three basic forms that the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem can take. A person can be mekayem Kiddush Hashem through martyrdom, through yehareg v'al ya'avor when the halacha demands that response. A person is also mekayem the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem, the Rambam writes:

כל הפורש מעבירה או עשה מצוה לא מפני דבר בעולם לא פחד ולא יראה ולא לבקש כבוד אלא מפני הבורא ברוך הוא כמניעת יוסף הצדיק עצמו מאשת רבו הרי זה מקדש השם.

A second form of the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem is when a person does something with no other motivation whatsoever. The only motivation is מפני הבורא ברוך הוא. Because this is what the Ribbono Shel Olam said to do, that's why the person does it. This is what the Ribbono Shel Olam said not to do, that's why the person abstains. That's also a form of Kiddush Hashem. It can play itself out betzina, it can play itself out... it never is witnessed befarhesya because only Hashem yireh lalevav. The person may be in the presence of others, but by definition it's betzina because it's a mindset. It's what his kavanos are. He may be in the presence of hundreds, of thousands, but only the Ribbono Shel Olam knows whether or not what's happening is an act of Kiddush Hashem. But that's the second form of Kiddush Hashem. And the third, the famous one that the Rambam has here at the end of Perek Hei:

וכן אם דקדק החכם על עצמו והיה דיבורו בנחת עם הבריות ודעתו מעורבת עמהם.

He's very exacting in how he behaves, in how he comports himself. His... all his interactions with people are pleasant, are sweet, gentle:

מקבילן בסבר פנים יפות ונעלב מהן ואינו עולב ומכבד להם ואפילו למקילים לו ונושא ונותן באמונה,

etcetera, ועושה בכל מעשיו לפנים משורת הדין, עד שימצאו, again skipping a few words, עד שימצאו הכל מקלסו אותו ואוהבים אותו ומתאווים למעשיו. So when his behavior, with an emphasis on his bein adam l'chaveiro, but not exclusively bein adam l'chaveiro, when his behavior elicits the response of hakol mekalsu oso, everyone praises him, everyone loves him, everyone aspires to be able to... oh, I wish I could uphold such a standard in my life, in my behavior, הרי זה קידוש השם. What's the underlying definition then of Kiddush Hashem? These seem to be three very different kiyumim. Again, to be neherag when the halacha requires yehareg v'al ya'avor. The model of Yosef Hatzaddik to do something לא מפני דבר בעולם אלא מפני הבורא ברוך הוא. And then this person who's an exemplar and elicits praise from people. So what's the underlying definition of Kiddush Hashem? So lich'ora, that definition is that when a person through his behavior attests to the fact... that Hashem echad and ein od milvado he’s mekadesh Shem Shamayim. When a person’s behavior bespeaks the reality of ein od milvado, so that person has been mekadesh Shem Shamayim. A person gives his life, a person gives his life, it means, what does a person give his life for? A person gives his life, it means his life is not his own, it’s the Ribbono shel Olam’s anyway. A person gives his life because everything is the Ribbono shel Olam, ein od milvado. When a person acts with no other consideration, no cheshbonos, cheshbonos rabbim, but just מפני הבורא ברוך הוא because there is nothing else, there’s no other source of value, there is nothing else, there’s the Ribbono shel Olam and he alone determines, dictates how we should live, and we should live in response to that determination, in response to that dictation. In describing the chacham who’s mekadesh Shem Shamayim, the Rambam says he elicits a reaction of מקלסין אותו אוהבים אותו ומתאוים למעשיו. So there’s an unavoidable association here with the Rambam’s description earlier in Perek Beis of Yesodei HaTorah, when a person

בשעה שיתבונן האדם במעשיו וברואיו הנפלאים הגדולים ויראה מהם חכמתו שאין לה ערך ולא קץ.

When a person reflects with discernment on Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s great and wondrous creations and handiwork and glimpses the inestimable and infinite chochmah, so what’s the reaction that a person has to

חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא? מיד הוא אוהב ומשבח ומפאר ומתאוה תאוה גדולה.

And it’s the same reaction that this chacham elicits from people. This chacham who lives by devar Hashem, so he elicits the same reaction of עד שימצאו הכל מקלסין אותו, parallel to meshabe’ach, ohavin oso, umisavin lema’asav. When a person conducts himself in such a way, he lives a godly life, so again, that testifies to the ein od milvado when his very metzius is a reflection and elicits the same reaction which looking into Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s briyah, you look into Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s briyah, so a person is ohev, a person is meshabe’ach, a person is misaveh, because it’s an encounter with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When a person elevates himself, his conduct, his life to such a level that people have that same reaction to him as Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s, as Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s briyah, so that also attests to the fact that ein od milvado. And that’s what the kiyum, what the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem is, that a person’s life should be an uninterrupted testimony to that reality of Hashem echad and ein od milvado.