Uru Yeshainim: Ignoring Hashem, a form of Denying Hashem

שופר של ראש השנה perek gimmel halakha daled remez yesh bo

כלומר עורו עורו ישנים משנתכם והקיצו נרדמים מתרדמתכם וחפשו במעשיכם וחזרו בתשובה וזכרו בוראכם אלו השוכחים את האמת בהבלי הזמן ושוגים כל שנתם בהבל וריק אשר לא יועיל ולא יציל הביטו לנפשותיכם והיטיבו דרכיכם ומעלליכם ויעזוב כל אחד מכם דרכו הרעה ומחשבתו שלא טובה.

The Rambam's famous insight into some of the religious content, some of the experiential content of mitzvat shofar that it's a wake-up call to teshuva. And to whom is that call addressed?

אלו השוכחים את האמת בהבלי הזמן ושוגים כל שנתם בהבל וריק.

People who forget truth and squander their lives immersed in emptiness and in hollow pursuits. On one level, the Rambam's mussar is just so self-evidently powerful and resonates, it doesn't really need any commentary. But ke-midumeh that the Rambam has in mind a deeper level than the one which first appears. To try to elicit that, to try to uncover that, so we need to look at a few other halakhot in the Rambam, a few other leshonot in the Rambam. At the very beginning of Hilkhot Avodah Zarah when the Rambam describes the ta'ut of Avodah Zarah. And the Rambam says that the first stage of Avodah Zarah, so the truth is that those who practice Avodah Zarah were really monotheists. They didn't ascribe divine or even any kind of discretionary powers to the kokhavim, to the galgalim, but bedatam hara'ah they thought it was retzon HaShem to be mekhabed, mefa'er, meshabe'akh those heavenly bodies which are meshamshim le-fanav ba-marom. And he says that's the pshat in the pasuk in Yirmiyahu, hu she-Yirmiyahu omer

מי לא יראך מלך הגויים כי לך יאתה כי בכל חכמי הגויים ובכל מלכותם מאין כמוך

even amongst the nations of the Avodah Zarah, so ultimately they fear you, HaKadosh Barukh Hu. U-ve-achat yiv'aru ve-yikhsalu, in one crucial respect, they're ignorant and foolish. מוסר הבלים עץ הוא. So what does the pasuk mean? So the Rambam teitsches for us.

כלומר הכל יודעים שאתה הוא הקל לבדך אבל טעותם וכסלותם שמדמין שזה ההבל רצונך הוא.

Avodah Zarah is hevel and that's not only the Rambam's usage, but that's the pasuk in Yirmiyahu. The Rambam says it again at the end of perek yud-alef. In perek yud-alef, the Rambam discusses lo tenakheshu, lo te'onenu, doresh el ha-metim, sho'el ov ve-yidoni, mekhashef. And the Rambam says ודברים האלו כולן דברי שקר וכזב הן. They're all fake, they're all fraudulent practices. There's no substance to any of them. And they are

והם שהיטו בהן עובדי עבודה זרה הקדמונים לגויי הארצות כדי שילכו אחריהם

that they were instruments which the ovdei avodah zarah used to try to attract a following. ואין ראוי לישראל שהן חכמים מחוכמים להימשך בהבלים אלו. Yisrael shehein chachamim mechuchamim, they should not be drawn after such havalim. And again the Rambam reiterates,

ומפני זה אמרה תורה כשהזהירה על כל אלו ההבלים תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך.

But the mareh makom which is most telling and most compelling in this context, if you look in the Rambam's siddur at the end of Sefer Ahavah, but you have to look in the Frankel, not in the standard dfusim. So you look at the Musaf of Rosh Hashanah, so the Rambam gives us the text of Aleinu. So the Rambam has the line, שהם משתחווים להבל וריק ומתפללים אל אל לא יושיע. So it's exactly the same phrase, right? It's hevel varik. The description of avodah zarah, the description of avodah zarah שהם משתחווים להבל וריק. In Perek Gimmel of Hilchos Teshuvah, when he's talking about the remez of tekias shofar, he refers to people that שוגין כל שנותיהם בהבל וריק. So that's piece of the puzzle number one. Piece of the puzzle number two, if you go back to the beginning of the very beginning of the Yad,

יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון. והוא ממציא כל הנמצא וכל הנמצאים משמים וארץ ומה שביניהם לא נמצאו אלא מאמיתת הימצאו. ואם יעלה על הדעת שהוא אינו מצוי אין דבר אחר יכול להימצאות. ואם יעלה על הדעת שאין כל הנמצאים מלבדו מצויים הוא לבדו יהיה מצוי ולא יבוטל הוא לביטולם.

If one would imagine, rachmana litzlan, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't exist, so that would preclude anything and everything else from existing. If one would imagine that everything other than Hakadosh Baruch Hu ceased to exist, in no way would that negate His existence,

שכל הנמצאים צריכים לו והוא ברוך הוא אינו צריך להם ולא לאחד מהם.

Because everything that exists depends upon Him, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is absolutely independent, He doesn't need the briyah collectively, He doesn't need any specific element of it individually. לפיכך אין אמיתתו כאמיתת אחד מהם. Now let's pay very, very careful attention to halacha daled. Hu shehanavi omer, pasuk, a phrase from Yirmiyahu, v'Hashem Elokim emes.

הוא לבדו האמת ואין לאחר אמת כאמיתתו. והוא שהתורה אומרת אין עוד מלבדו כלומר שאין שם מצוי אמת מלבדו כמותו.

So the Rambam says the pasuk and the phrase in Yirmiyahu, v'Hashem Elokim emes, and the phrase in Chumash, ein od milvado, are saying, are teaching the same yesod. Ein od milvado, it's clear that nothing exists other than Hashem, and we and everything else we see around us only exist through Hashem, because of Hashem, from him. And that's what it means v'Hashem Elokim emes also. Hu levado ha'emes. How is emes sort of synonymous with metzius? So maybe a way to a little bit to relate to it is as follows. If I tell you right now that it's snowing outside, true or false, it's snowing outside? False. Why is it false? Because if you go outside, it's not snowing, right? It isn't, right? So it's false, it isn't. If I tell you that right now it's dark outside, that it's night outside, so true or false? The answer is true because it is. And what's more, ultimately, ultimately, you can't ask why something is true. It's true because it's true. I mean, whatever, you can explain why it's night, you can explain that the Earth is turning on its axis. So what's true is something which is just self-validating, it's self-sustaining. So the Rambam says the passuk והשם אלוקים אמת הוא לבדו האמת is expressing the identical idea as Ein Od Milvado. Okay. So piece of the puzzle number one is שהם משתחוים להבל וריק ומתפללים לאל לא יושיע, again ayen aso where you only have the word hevel as denoting avodah zarah. Piece of the puzzle number two: הוא לבדו האמת. Itochen that the mussar the Rambam is giving us in perek gimmel of hilchos shofar is even a stronger message than it seems at first glance. The peshutam shel devarim: Stop wasting your time, wake up, and start living meaningfully. A powerful, powerful message. On a deeper level, the Rambam is saying, for a person to waste his life, for a person to waste his time, for a person to be preoccupied with pettiness and shallowness and material and mundane for no greater, redeeming, transcendent purpose, on a certain level is to deny Hakadosh Baruch Hu. אלו השוכחים את האמת, the ksiv is emes, the krei is v'Hashem Elokim Emes. שוגים כל שנותיהם בהבל וריק. Okay, the ksiv, the ksiv is they're wasting their time. The krei is on a level, on a certain level it's tantamount, on a certain level obviously, on a certain there's a certain moral equivalent say, there's a k'eilu, obviously not literally and obviously not rigorously. But on a k'eilu level, the Rambam isn't just stam borrowing a melitzah from from the nusach hatefillah. Because if you think about it rabosai, again on the k'eilu level, is there really that much of a difference between whether a person brazenly rachmana litzlan denies Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the form of being oved avodah zarah or whether he just ignores Hakadosh Baruch Hu, or whether his belief in Hakadosh Baruch Hu is practically irrelevant to how he lives? On a k'eilu level, it's not that different. It's not that different if it's a brazen denial, and again even the Rambam's first stage of avodah zarah is a different sort of denial than the polytheistic denial rachmana litzlan. Whether one denies or one ignores, ignoring is a form of form of denial. On a k'eilu level, there's a certain equivalence between denying and ignoring. And hence, that's what the Rambam says: שוגים כל שנותיהם בהבל וריק. There's an association there with with that phrase. That phrase is supposed to trigger an association. Kuntres, this didn't have to be the case, this is not answering a kasha, there is no kasha here that this next comment is seeking to answer. But it does emerge that the Rambam's Taamei Mitzvos as it were, the Rambam's remez of mitzvos Shofar and Chazal's famous remez of אמרו לפני מלכיות כדי שתמליכוני עליכם ובמה בשופר, they're not giving two different taamim. They could have been, it's okay. There wouldn't have been a kasha. There wouldn't have been a kasha. The Rambam's allowed to give an additional taam. It wouldn't have been a kasha, I'm not coming to fend for a kasha. But leamito shel davar it's not different. It's not different. If a person spends his life with dvarim biteilim, that encroaches upon malchiyos. The message of Chazal that the kol shofar is kedei shetamlichuni aleichem, what tamlichuni aleichem translates practically is that a person lives as meaningfully and as purposely as possible. That a person is preoccupied with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, with nitzchiyos, and is not preoccupied with the here and now kshelatzmo, again unless it's serving as a bridge, unless it's serving as a hechsher. Someone, I mentioned this idea, someone added that lichora you see it reflected also in אשר לא יועיל ולא יציל. Let's say you see someone wasting his time in whatever form or fashion. So how would we try to motivate the person? We'll tell him it's not going to amount to anything, it's not going to, doesn't give you anything. What's asher lo yatzil? If someone's bowing down to a getshke, you tell him, you know, that's not going to save you. You think that saying a prayer to this getshke is going to save you? It's not going to save you. So what do you tell a person? You tell a person who's, again, in whatever form or fashion is wasting time, it's not going to... that's not the appropriate description. I'm doing it, I don't think it's going to save me. I'm not sitting here wasting my time. No, you do, because lemaaseh a person is substituting that for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So the mussar takeh is, the mussar takeh is that all this emptiness and all this shallowness and all the pettiness is lo yoil and lo yatzil. Shall have a gemar chasima tova, shnas chayim vishalom, א גוט געבענטשט יאר.