Vayeshev: Yisurim

Vayeshev Yaakov,

ביקש יעקב לשבת בשלווה, וקפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף. צדיקים מבקשים לשבת בשלווה, אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמזומן להם לעולם הבא אלא שמבקשים לשבת בשלווה בעולם הזה.

One of the Middos with which HaKadosh Baruch Hu is manhig his world is presented here. Tzaddikim want to live with the peace and serenity. They want it because it's the optimal situation to focus on Avodas Hashem, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu says: לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמזומן להם לעולם הבא, and immediately קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף. So right away the strife and the contention regarding Yosef intrudes upon Yaakov Avinu's life. To just elaborate a little bit this Midda of אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא, the Vilna Gaon says that without Yisurim a person couldn't survive. The Ramban writes in Toras HaAdam that a lifetime of Yissurei Iyov in Olam Hazeh pales in comparison rachmana litzlan to yisurim of le'achar misa. The Gemara in Brachos has a concept of yissurin shel ahava. So Rashi famously on דף ה עמוד א when the Gemara first mentions yissurin shel ahava, Rashi says

הקדוש ברוך הוא מייסרו בעולם הזה בלא שום עוון כדי להרבות שכרו בעולם הבא יותר מכדי זכויותיו.

So seemingly Rashi defines yissurin shel ahava as yisurim which don't come in response to cheit. They just come to increase a person's schar in Olam Haba. But on amud beis when the Gemara distinguishes rachmana litzlan between a person who's childless and a person who rachmana litzlan is kover es banav, so there too the Gemara says that kover es banav is yissurin shel ahava. Rashi says

דהוו להו בנים ומיתו הוו להו ייסורין של אהבה שהאבילות מכפרת על עוונותיו.

So here Rashi uses the phrase yissurin shel ahava and says that yissurin shel ahava are mechaper on avonos. Rashi on amud aleph seemingly defined yissurin shel ahava that

הקדוש ברוך הוא מייסרו בעולם הזה בלא שום עוון כדי להרבות שכרו בעולם הבא.

So the answer lichora is as follows: that what yissurin shel ahava mean, they're yisurim which come from HaKadosh Baruch Hu's middas harachamim. They're yisurim which are an expression of ahavas Hashem as opposed to yisurim which are where a person as it were has made himself ineligible for ahavas Hashem, for the middas harachamim, and is receiving yisurim from the middas hadin, rachmana litzlan. So yissurin shel ahava means again that as it were the yisurim emanate from HaKadosh Baruch Hu's love for him. from a middas harachamim. Now those yisurim, the middas harachamim, the ahavah, may be expressing itself in yisurim. The the expression of love may be להרבות שכרו בעולם הבא. That's one possible expression of love. Another possible expression of love is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants that the person shouldn't rachmana litzlan come to the olam ha'emes with any demerits. He shouldn't come with any any avonos on his record. So because of that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives him the yisurim in olam hazeh lechaper avonosov. And that's how the Tosafists are consistent in terms of what yisurim shel ahavah mean. And it's that which is reflected in the statement of the Gaon that we mentioned before, that without yisurim a person would have no kiyum. If a person אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא, if a person didn't didn't have to endure adversity, so then, I think in in Rav Wolbe's little kuntres with the biographical sketch of Rav Yeruchem, he says that Rav Yeruchem in when he was in the illness which ultimately took his life was heard saying, addressing himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, טאטע א דאנק פאר די יסורים. Right? Daddy, thank you for the yisurim. Rav Yeruchem had this understanding and this experience of yisurim. That's the middah, the hanhagah of לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמזומן להם לעולם הבא, but olam hazeh as well. Now, it's certainly the case the same sugya in Berachos says that a person doesn't look for yisurim. If a person has yisurim, a person makes hishtadlus, whether it's hishtadlus or whether it's tefillah to extricate himself from the yisurim, לא הן ולא שכרן. So how do we reconcile that with what we've been talking about? So we have this dialectic. A person is not supposed to invite yisurim. To cope with yisurim is a nisayon. לעולם אל יביא אדם עצמו לידי ניסיון. The hishtadlus that we make, and no matter how indispensable as it were, but a person is not supposed to invite them. The hishtadlus that we make, the direction in which we daven is determined by our perspective. And again, on our level, a person shouldn't be מביא עצמו לידי ניסיון. What we've been talking about is the perspective in bitachon that a person is supposed to have about the past and the present. In terms of relating to past and present, so that's how a person should try to view whatever adversity has existed or continues to exist in his life as again, as an expression of ahavas Hashem to much more easily purge and cleanse than through what would come later. No one sails through through life on perfectly calm and placid waters. More on that in a minute bli neder. And it's so crucial that a We recognize again, adversity can come in very significant and dramatic ways, it can come in much smaller and ways as well, but it's so crucial that A, we recognize that it's from HaKadosh Baruch Hu and B, that we recognize that it's a matanah from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The natural impulse, if one doesn't have the deep-seated bitachon of a Reb Yeruchem, the natural impulse is a sense of frustration, a sense of anger, questioning Rachmana litzlan. And the emes is, again, it's a midah of ahavas Hashem, Hashem's ahavah for us, that we encounter, again, whether on a large scale or a small scale, that we encounter adversity in our lives. It can be on a personal level in terms of personal relationships, it can be on a professional level, certain professional aspirations or opportunities that don't materialize. It can be in terms of health, Rachmana litzlan, it can be in many, many different fashions, but the tzad hashaveh shebahen is that they express HaKadosh Baruch Hu's ahavah for us. And it's crucial, crucial that we recognize it as such. I think Rav Sternbuch has a he'arah in his he'aros on the Rambam's Hilchos Teshuvah, that when we say that aveiros miskapros through yisurim, it means a person has to be mekabel those yisurim in a context of teshuvah. That the kaparah isn't just sort of an automatic, passive kaparah, but it means a person is mekabel what HaKadosh Baruch Hu, what HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent. The emes is that even, even this, the need to recognize that yisurim, A, come from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, B, come as a chesed, HaKadosh Baruch Hu helps us with that also, and that's also in this week's parsha. How so? Rashi again quotes from Chazal in ויעברו אנשים מדינים סוחרים that most Arabs trade in oil and things with foul odor, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu orchestrated that Yosef should be sold to Arabs whose cargo had a very pleasant fragrance שלא יוזק מריח רע. Haga'atzmecha. Imagine someone's exiled to Siberia and he's forced to contend with the inhuman and inhumane conditions there, the 40, 50 degree sub-zero weather, the lack of food, the lack of proper shelter. The only thing is, every night when he goes to sleep, so miraculously he finds a chocolate, he finds a mint under his pillow. So what's the mint worth? What's the value of the mint? It offsets the, he can warm himself up, it's going to insulate him against the 40, 50 degree below zero weather. It's going to offset the malnutrition from not having food. So the value of the mint is that lest the person think, rachmana litzlan, that he's been forsaken and forgotten and abandoned. So the mint is a reminder that maybe the person doesn't understand, can't draw lines, can't correlate what he's enduring with what the underlying cause is. But the mint sends the message that the person hasn't, rachmana litzlan, been forgotten and forsaken. And it's a reminder and it's a context for his suffering. Chasdei Hashem is not only that the Ribbono shel Olam gives us adversity that we should have to contend with, but there's always a mint under the pillow. A person has to look to identify, I think Rav Chaim Shmulevitz talks about this idea. A person has to look to identify, to see and to appreciate those mints because if a person finds the mints, a person finds the chocolate that's under the pillow, so then that gives him a tremendous chizuk in remembering what the adversity accomplishes and what it really represents. It can convert, again, it can convert and transform a response of frustration and anger and annoyance and a sense of abandonment, rachmana litzlan, to a Rav Yeruchem-type response. There are almost endless applications in terms of different situations and scenarios. תן לחכם ויחכם עוד, but just one final he'arah. The question, there is a very disturbing question which presents itself in this context. What happens if a person looks around and life is good? Baruch Hashem, he's in good health and Baruch Hashem everyone around him is in good health and he's being matzliach in whatever he's doing. And if he's at that stage of life already, he has shalom bayis and he has nachas from his children and everything is good. So what the Gaon tells us, so does that now all of a sudden become cause for profound concern and fear? So the Gemara in Arachin, well-known Gemara, has like this. It's a well-known Gemara here at the end of the third perek in Masechet Arachin. עד היכן תכלית ייסורין, which Rashi explains that in this context what it means. just how much is still construed to be considered in the class of yissurin. So the Gemara.

אמר רבי אלעזר כל שארגו לו בגד ללבוש ואין מתקבל עליו.

He went to the tailor to have a garment tailored and then he messed up, it doesn't fit right. So that's annoying.

מתיב ליה רב זירא ואיתימא רבי שמואל בר אחמני גדולה מזו אמרו אפילו נתכוונו למזוג בחמין ומזגו לו בצונן בצונן ומזגו לו בחמין.

Even if you wanted them to add hot water to your wine and they added cold water or vice versa, that's also a bechina of yissur. מר בריה דרבינא אמר אפילו נהפך לו חלוקו. You put on a garment and you put it on inside out. So now you have the annoyance of having to take it off and put it back on.

במתניתא תנא אפילו הושיט ידו לכיס ליטול שלש ועלו בידו שתים.

You put your hand into your pocket to pull out three coins, you only got two coins, you're going to have to put your hand in again to get the third coin. That's also a bechina of yissur. The Maharsha says on this Gemara that michessed Hashem that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives yissurim in such small increments that it should be so easy for us to tolerate. But even these we wouldn't have even thought to classify any of these as yissur. But even these again seemingly trivial or petty mishaps, so Chazal tells us that's also a bechina of yissur and the Maharsha says it's because the Gemara goes on to say that a person, it's basically the Gaon's idea is the next line here in the Gemara of כל שעברו עליו ארבעים יום בלא יסורים קיבל עולמו, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu since it's so necessary again to be mechaper that michessed Hashem that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives it in such small and mild doses and increments. I don't know how many people there are who don't even have such, you know, you go into the store and it's a dollar seven and you're putting in your hand to your pocket to get seven cents and you get only one nickel or you got the dime but you were looking for the pennies. So if a person back at all the big things in a person's life are good, so lav davka that the person should be jittering because of that, but there should be an even greater sense of hakaras hatov and a greater sense of the chessed of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in his life that even those yissurim which are so necessary that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives in again such mild doses that a person is hardly aware of the fact of the yissur. Be'emes what the Maharsha says Rashi already says also. The Gemara says vechol kach lama after illustrating again where the garment comes back from the tailors and it doesn't fit exactly etc., even the coins. Klomar, Rashi has a fascinating lashon למאי הלכתא הוו יסורין. So למאי הלכתא הוו יסורין and it says no that a person shouldn't worry that he hasn't been subjected to yissurim. So all this is part of that midah of ביקש יעקב לשבת בשלווה, lasheves beshalva, and אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא לא דיין לצדיקים.