Do we Really Believe? Are We Really Committed? Introspection for Yomim Noraim 5775

Thank you very much, Shisover Mor De'asra, Shisover Woelig, Morei VeRabbosai. On these occasions and in these forums when it's time for introspection, for maybe words of hisorerus, so the method that I generally fall back upon is I look in the mirror and then I do some outward projecting onto the audience. Now that's an approach which has decided drawbacks. I mean, with that approach I should legislate that the entire audience go on a diet and various other measures, so it definitely has its drawbacks. But maybe maybe some of the thoughts will be relevant to others as well. When Moshe Rabbeinu says to Hakadosh Baruch Hu והן לא יאמינו לי, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu punishes him. His hand turns metzoraas kashaleg. It turns white with tzaraas. Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells him that you're referring to Bnei Yisrael. Bnei Yisrael are ma'aminim bnei ma'aminim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is honing in on a defining characteristic trait, a defining attribute of Kol Yisrael, that what defines us is we are ma'aminim bnei ma'aminim, believers, the children of believers. Rabbi Yosef Albo has a critique of the Rambam's Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim. He says that the Rambam should have economized, he should have compressed the Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim into three categories. He should have said that one ikkar is belief in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, in the Borei Olam, and then another fundamental principle is Torah, and a third fundamental principle is sechar ve'onesh, is reward and punishment. And everything else that the Rambam specified within his Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim are really subcategories of those three overarching categories. Says Rabbi Yosef Albo, veharaya that these are the three major categories is that they correspond to the three brachos that we add to the Musaf Shemoneh Esrei on Rosh Hashanah, that they correspond to Malchiyos, Zichronos, and Shofros. Malchiyos, the first of the three, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the Borei Olam, Zichronos, the last of the three, sechar ve'onesh,

אתה זוכר מעשי עולם ופוקד כל יצורי קדם, אין דבר נעלם ממך ואין נסתר מנגד עיניך.

And finally, Shofros, אתה נגלית בענן כבודך על עם קדשך לדבר עמם Torah min hashamayim. So Rabbi Yosef Albo gives us a very insightful definition of the Malchiyos of Rosh Hashanah. Again, Zichronos and Shofros are themselves subcategories of Malchiyos, they are themselves expressions of Malchiyos. And that basically Rosh Hashanah, a day of Malchiyos, is a day of emunah. It's a day of reaffirming and rededicating ourselves to ikkarei haemunah, and that's what the Malchiyos, Zichronos, and Shofros express, and by saying the psukim, so we reaffirm and we rededicate ourselves to our core beliefs. So it's very, very appropriate to take a few minutes before Rosh Hashanah to think a little bit and to introspect about inyanei emunah. The question: do we really believe? would seem to be a no-starter. Of course we believe. Of course we believe. We all daven and we all keep Shabbos and we all keep kosher and we're all getting ready for Rosh Hashanah. Of course we believe. And yet it's interesting, I don't think it's known who it is who mezakeh us with the Ani Ma'amins in the siddur, the compressed version of the Rambam's Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim, but it's interesting, whoever that anonymous mechaber is, so he introduces each of the principles of faith with אני מאמין באמונה שלמה. So apparently that's not redundant. Apparently were we to affirm Ani Ma'amin, it wouldn't necessarily mean, it wouldn't necessarily indicate. So maybe we'll just mention two, whether it's really shnayim shehem echad or whether it's two different forms of emuna which fall short of being complete faith. Chazal tell us, commenting on the pasuk Rashi quotes it, Noach enters the teiva mipnei mei hamabul. So Chazal darshen that until the waters actually forced Noach in, so he didn't go in. So the literal meaning of Chazal's comment, not to imply necessarily that we're supposed to understand it literally in terms of Noach, but the literal rendition of Chazal's comment is that נח מקטני אמנה היה, that נח מאמין ואינו מאמין. He believed and yet until he actually saw the deluge beginning, he wasn't fully convinced that the mabul was going to come. Again, whatever it really means in terms of Noach, so we're focusing on its literal meaning, its literal meaning. Again, not that that's what Chazal are telling us about Noach, but for our purposes of trying to illustrate what the concept of emuna shelema is. A person can believe, but does he really really believe? Is it with absolute conviction? And the literal translation of maamin ve'eino maamin, he believed but... There's a famous story about Rav Yisrael Salanter. It's hard to know when one hears stories about gedolei Yisrael, it's hard to know which stories are historically accurate, which are apocryphal. This is a good story either way, whether it's historically accurate or it's apocryphal, it's a good story and sends a good message. There is, as you know, a dispute as to what the mida of bitachon is. The Chazon Ish very famously argues that there is a popular misconception about what bitachon means. That people think that bitachon means having trust, having faith in Hakadosh Baruch Hu means עס וועט זיין גוט, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu will make things good according to our understanding, by our standards. And the Chazon Ish says he thinks that that's a fundamental error, that's not what bitachon means. What bitachon means is that what Hakadosh Baruch Hu does is good and that yes, things will turn out good, but whether or not we know what's truly good, that's not necessarily the case. But a person has the menuchas hanefesh, he has the equanimity of knowing that what will turn out will be good by Hakadosh Baruch Hu's understanding. The view that the Chazon Ish is critiquing, so many think that Rav Yisrael Salanter actually did accept that understanding of bitachon and that if a person really really believes be'emuna shelema, so then it will materialize. And the story is told that Rav Yisrael Salanter was once trying to illustrate this to someone, once trying to teach this to someone, so he told him, he gave him the mussar shmuess, the divrei hisorerus about the midas of bitachon and told him, buy a lottery ticket and if you have bitachon, you're going to win the lottery. Okay, he says, okay, I'm going to do it. He goes, buys a lottery ticket. Salanter says you believe? He says yeah. He says you really really believe you're going to win those hundred thousand rubles? He says yes. Rav Salanter says I'll give you twenty five thousand rubles for your ticket. Deal! So Rav Salanter says, so you see, you didn't really believe. You believe, but you don't believe. So sometimes a person can believe, but not believe. ktanei amana, maamin ve'eino maamin, fifty percent, eighty percent, maybe even ninety nine percent. But emuna shelema means that there's an absolute certainty to that belief. Another aspect, another feature of emuna shelema as opposed to simple emuna. There are many many different interpretations as to what the chet of Moshe Rabbeinu was. Was the chet of Moshe Rabbeinu that he grew angry? Was the chet of Moshe Rabbeinu that he hits the stone instead of talking to the stone? Was the chet of Moshe Rabbeinu that he introduces the miracle with המן הסלע הזה נוציא לכם מים which would seem to mislead the Klal Yisrael into thinking that he and Aharon are going to be responsible for the miracle instead of... saying המן הסלע הזה יוציא השם לכם מים. Okay. Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh famously enumerates ten different pshatim in what the chet of Moshe Rabbeinu is, right? It speaks well for a person if you need to look with a microscope to try to find his chet and even then you can't really it's hard to hard to pinpoint. But every pshat has to then account for the fact that when HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe Rabbeinu that he has sinned and he's going to be punished, HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe Rabbeinu speaking to him and Aharon: יען לא האמנתם בי. Which seems to translate, again: you didn't believe in me. So all the pshatim which don't seem to highlight a lack of belief, so how how do they account for for the the the indictment? The indictment says יען לא האמנתם בי but many of the pshatim don't highlight a seemingly a lack of emunah in in the chet of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon. So one of the answers given is a very, very beautiful answer. Again, they're all very beautiful, but the one that's pertinent to our our topic tonight says that when a person really, really believes, the belief translates into action. And that yes, Moshe Rabbeinu, his his misstep was in on on the level of action. Again, was it was it was it getting angry? Was it hitting whatever the pshat is. The misstep was an action. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says יען לא האמנתם בי. Moshe Rabbeinu, if you believe enough, so then that belief has to translate into into action. The Rambam... the Gemara Makkot, a Gemara with which I'm I'm sure you you're all familiar, Gemara tells us how at different points in history different nevi'im tried to formulate for Klal Yisrael what the core principles of Torah are. To give them a better grasp and a better way of understanding how to approach Kiyum HaMitzvos. And ultimately the Gemara says that Chavakuk HaNavi distilled all of Torah into one principle: Tzaddik be'emunaso yichyeh. Tzaddik be'emunaso yichyeh. So let's begin with with the first word lest we tune out once we hear that the pasuk is addressing a tzaddik. So we generally use the the word tzaddik as describing people who are very, very great and very, very holy and people whom we see as way beyond anything we can achieve, anything we can attain. The correct definition of the word tzaddik is that a tzaddik is a person who does mitzvos and doesn't do averos. A person who's doing more than what's expected, he's a chasid. That's that implies lifnim mishuras hadin. That implies going beyond the letter of of the law. But the way in in Lashon Mikra and in Lashon Chazal what the word tzaddik means, it means that a person does mitzvos and and he doesn't and he doesn't do averos. That's that's a tzaddik. Okay. Does it have other meanings as well? So Ayin Tanya. But that's the simple that's the simple pshat that tzaddik means a person who does mitzvos, doesn't do averos. That's why for instance when the Rambam in the beginning of Hilchot De'os is talking about what the middle, moderate mean is when it comes to physical appetite, so the Rambam says, you know, a person he shouldn't be such an ascetic that he doesn't eat enough to to maintain his to maintain his strength. On the other hand, he shouldn't eat gluttonously. So he should eat again that he should be able to function at maximum capacity. And then the Rambam quotes as a prooftext: צדיק אוכל לשובע נפשו. The Rambam's prooftext when he's telling us what the mean is for everyone. He's he's talking to each of us. So the Rambam says tzaddik ochel quotes the pasuk צדיק אוכל לשובע נפשו. So what's that got to do? Okay, so the צדיק אוכל לשובע נפשו. I take seconds on dessert, and thirds and fourths. No, so the Rambam when he quotes the צדיק אוכל לשובע נפשו, no, so he's talking to each and every one of us because tzaddik isn't the way we use it as maximum. it can only refer to 1% of the population. No, the way it should be, tzaddik, the term tzaddik should refer to 100% of the population. So Chavakuk tells us something beginning with the word tzaddik, so he's speaking to each and every one of us. So Chavakuk says tzaddik be'emunaso yichyeh, so again, so you see the same idea as יען לא האמנתם בי that emunah is something that's a lifestyle. It's not just sort of intellectual propositions that a person subscribes to, but it's something yichyeh, a person lives by his faith. The Rambam wrote, as he did with most of his works, he wrote his Sefer HaMitzvos in Judeo-Arabic. And it was translated by Ibn Tibbon, to whom centuries of Jews are greatly, greatly indebted for their access to so much of the Rambam other than Mishneh Torah. So Ibn Tibbon had the following challenge when he was translating the Rambam Sefer HaMitzvos. Ibn Tibbon was very, very careful that he always translated the same word that the Rambam used in Judeo-Arabic, he always used the same Hebrew word for it. So you can be medayek in how words appear in the translation because he held himself to that rigorous standard. So he had the following challenge. The Rambam uses the same verb with regard to the mitzvah anochi Hashem Elokecha to know and believe in the existence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He uses that same verb again in the mitzvah of שמע ישראל ה' אלוהינו ה' אחד to know and believe in the oneness, uniqueness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And then he uses that same verb, if there was no one here who knows Judeo-Arabic I'll tell you what it is so no one can catch me in my pronunciation, but I need that guarantee first. Then he uses that same verb when he's talking about yiras Hashem. So he needs a verb, the first two seem to be more again intellectual, intellectually based and anchored beliefs. And yiras Hashem is an awareness, is a consciousness, is a feeling. So that's Ibn Tibbon's challenge, so what word in Hebrew is sort of going to combine again it's something I know, it's something I believe, but it's something I feel, it's something part of my consciousness, something part of my awareness. So Ibn Tibbon translates each of them as lehaamin. That anochi Hashem Elokecha is lehaamin in Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Shema Yisrael is lehaamin that the Hashem is echad and the mitzvah of Hashem Elokecha tira is lehaamin yiraso. So ordinarily we think that there really wasn't a Hebrew word, so you have to break new ground sometimes when you're trying to introduce a concept, sometimes the vocabulary doesn't exist so you have to push back the frontiers of language. And not to take credit away from Ibn Tibbon, but this tremendous insight that he's giving us into what emunah means. So emunah again is not something dry, it's not something that you can sort of classify as just intellectual. It's something I know, it's something I believe, but it's something I feel. He was looking for a word which captures the idea of knowledge that's alive, knowledge that translates into a feeling, knowledge that translates into action, knowledge that gives meaning and direction to our lives, and the word that Ibn Tibbon came up with is lehaamin. So let's mention, we're now at the projection stage, let's mention a couple of core beliefs and reflect as to whether ani maamin or אני מאמין באמונה שלמה. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avos again with which we're all familiar, that העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור לפני העולם הבא, that this world is an antechamber, a waiting room before Olam HaBa. The truth is sometimes when you go for a doctor's appointment you can sort of think that the antechamber, the waiting room is some place that you spend a lot of time, but in theory a waiting room is some place that you go through rather quickly. התקן עצמך בפרוזדור כדי שתיכנס לטרקלין. So the mandate, the imperative is to prepare oneself, perfect oneself while in the antechamber, while in the outer corridor so that one can enter the banquet hall. So do we believe this? Of course we believe this. Of course we believe this. We believe in Olam Habo. Everyone here believes in Olam Habo without a scintilla of doubt. But if we really believe be'emuna shelema so then that belief is something which should be reflected in our goals, in our aspirations, in our allocation of time and resources. And the same way, not the same way, but everyone has professional goals for themselves, for their children, aspirations. But if I'm maamin be'emuna shelema in that teaching of Chazal so then you should be able to tell that if you monitor my schedule by seeing what I do when I have a Sunday off from work, when I have a legal holiday off from work, when I have other hours which are not committed or even what commitments I allow myself, which are optional that I allow myself to make in the first place, you should see how with whatever money Hakadosh Baruch Hu blesses me, how I allocate that. If you're privy to what my goals and aspirations and dreams are, so in each of those areas it should just be overwhelmingly clear that העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור לפני העולם הבא. You know, there isn't it's not even a fraction, you can't have a fraction of eternity. So it's one area to think about. Again, allocation of time, resources, goals, dreams, aspirations. So how many of those goals, dreams and aspirations are otherworldly, are spiritual, have to do with avodas Hashem? The eleventh of the Rambam's ikarei haemuna is the belief in sachar vaonesh, belief in reward and punishment, or the belief in accountability, that a person is held accountable. It's interesting the Tannaim in Masechet Rosh Hashanah רבי אליעזר ורבי יהושע have a famous dispute as to whether or not Adam was nivra beTishrei, whether or not Hakadosh Baruch Hu began berias haolam on the twenty-fifth of Elul so that Adam Harishon was created on Aleph Tishrei or whether Adam was created in Nissan. So what's the dispute about? So when Adam is created gives us insight into what the essence of a person is. Rabbi Eliezer says Adam Harishon was created on Rosh Hashanah, later to be established as the Yom Hadin, but time has qualities. Time is not homogeneous. From the time Hakadosh Baruch Hu created time, it has within it again that inherent quality of being a day of judgment. So it means that the essence of man, says Rabbi Eliezer, is his accountability. That's the significance of being created on Aleph Tishrei, means that that's what it is, to be a person means to be someone who's accountable. Rabbi Yehoshua says that Adam nivra be'Nisan. What does Nisan represent? Nisan, the beginning of the spring season, represents hischadshus. It represents hischadshus in halacha also, renewal, the fund from which they would purchase the korbanos for korbanos tzibur, so that fund used to be the fiscal year in the Beis HaMikdash was from Aleph Nisan to Chaf-Tes Adar. And the new fiscal year, the hischadshus began on Aleph Nisan. So Nisan represents hischadshus. And that's why Nisan has to correspond with Chodesh HaAviv, with the spring when you have the hischadshus in the natural world as well. Tosfos says that both opinions are correct. Both opinions are correct. And that's why we say in Rosh Hashanah זה היום תחלת מעשיך זכרון ליום ראשון, we reflect Rebbi Eliezer's opinion, even though elsewhere in halacha Rebbi Yehoshua's opinion is reflected, both are correct, that kaveyachol, HaKadosh Baruch Hu conceived of the idea of creating Adam in Tishrei and He executed it in Nisan. So what does it mean? What does it mean when we have a delay? So we can't find a contractor. So we have an idea in Tishrei and three and a half years later in Nisan, so then we get the guy to the handyman shows up and so what's the delay here with HaKadosh Baruch Hu between the between the alah be'machshavah. So the metaphor of alah be'machshavah means that alah be'machshavah represents the ideal. That's what the anthropomorphism of alah be'machshavah means. HaKadosh Baruch Hu conceives of an idea means this is the ideal to which to which we strive. And then the what HaKadosh Baruch Hu actually does is the way the world runs, that the world allows for our less than ideal performance. So a person the essence of a person is that he's accountable. Okay, HaKadosh Baruch Hu allows for hischadshus, He allows for teshuvah, but that doesn't mean that there isn't accountability. In Perek Daled of Mesillas Yesharim, so Ramchal takes great pains to try to dispel the popular misconception that when we say HaKadosh Baruch Hu is an Av HaRachaman, so what it means is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu He lets things ride. So Ramchal says that's a terrible error. HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't let things ride. HaKadosh Baruch Hu's rachmanus is in waiting and allowing us to do teshuvah, giving us the opportunity, accepting teshuvah as something that cancels and erases and cleanses, but it's not just letting things ride. And he quotes so many maamarei Chazal, so many pesukim in Tanach, that מגיד לאדם מה שיחו, that אפילו שיחה קלה בין איש לאשתו, that even the most private conversation between husband and wife, so that's also part of the reckoning for Yom HaDin. The essence of what it means to be human is to be held accountable. And when we believe in sachar va'onesh, we believe in that. We believe in that accountability. It's not something which is depressing because of the Chodesh Nisan, because of the hischadshus, because of the possibility of teshuvah, because of the invitation to do teshuvah, because of the exhortation to do teshuvah, because of all the Dirshu Hashem behimatzo, because of all the helping hand kaveyachol that HaKadosh Baruch Hu extends to do teshuvah, but we have to do the teshuvah. It's not just that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says let bygones be bygones. When we do teshuvah, so then bygones are bygones. But we have to do the teshuvah and that's part of our belief in accountability, part of our belief in accountability is that we're accountable for everything we do. We're accountable for everything we do, we're accountable for everything we say. Man is too in the sense of anthropos, human. Man is too important and too central and too consequential a briah to just be cavalier and to just disregard what he does and what he says. Right, the president of the United States can't get away with saying anything off the record. He occupies too important a position. And even when he thinks it's a closed mic, inevitably it's going to turn out to be an open mic. And if you want to make jokes about Russia or the then Soviet Union, you better make sure that the mic is closed. But it's not like that. The mic inevitably is always is always open. And that's part of what we believe. But if we believe that be'emunah sheleimah. Not 50%, not 80%, not 99%. If we believe that be'emunah sheleimah, so then yaan lo he'emantem and it has to translate into action. There has to be a sense of responsibility for whatever we do and whatever we say. No sort of casual, cavalier attitude in terms of Torah and mitzvot. Perhaps we'll just reflect for, just take a few more minutes perhaps to reflect if anyone shares my assessment, my personal assessment of a certain incongruence or disparity between the emunah and the way it should translate. So why is that? Why does that gap exist? Why do we find that disparity? First of all, for what we believe, for the spiritual truths that we know and believe to register fully, to impact us the way they can, we have to be open to them. In too many cases, there's a layer or a crust of numbing materialism that dulls the effect of these truths. In order for עולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור לפני עולם הבא, in order for that to hit home, in order for that to register fully on me as it should, there can't be a buffer of excessive gashmius between me and that belief. The excessive involvement in materialism adulterates the message. It doesn't allow the belief again to register as fully and as deeply and as profoundly as it can and as it should. The most beautiful symphony, the most inspiring symphony can be playing, but if I've got earphones on which are blocking it, so that's gonna affect how much I hear it and therefore how much inspiration I draw from it. The openness to being able to hear, the openness for these again ikarei emunah to be able to impact us, to be able to register on us as they should, depends upon how many layers of excessive materialism we place between those truths and ourselves. Another factor: emunah is very fragile. One of the great baalei mussar said that if he goes, I don't know, 20 minutes, a half hour, something without reflecting on emunah, he feels a yeridah. He feels that he's regressing. Emunah is something, it's not something that a person sort of heard it four times, or maybe 40 times, or maybe 101 times, get it, clinched. Emunah is something very fragile. Something a person has to constantly be reinforcing. It's not simple information that I have that information, checked off, let's move on to something new and exciting. Something a person has to reflect upon, not looking necessarily, without even looking to understand and go beyond what he's understood until now. We need to constantly reflect and reinforce on the emunah we have. Emunah is very, very fragile. It slips very easily and very quickly. But if we're not in touch on a very, very regular basis with those beliefs, by thinking about them, reflecting upon them, reinforcing them, what I believe, what its implications are, the belief erodes and and it goes from being an ani ma'amin in the emuna sheleima to to ani ma'amin. And finally, in in order to allow our beliefs to translate into feeling, into action, into something we live by, tzaddik be'emuno yichyeh, we have to be willing to accept the implications of our emuna. Sometimes we don't want to allow the emuna to sink in because it has certain implications. It means that that I have to make major changes, perhaps major paradigm shifts in in my life, and my life is comfortable and and I don't want to make those changes. In order to allow the emuna again to register, in order to allow it to impact us fully, there has to be an openness to accept the implications. Like the Ramban writes to to his son in the famous iggeres, that whenever you finish learning, so the question he says, he says to his son, you have to ask yourself, okay, how do I apply it? How how do I implement it? So when we learn Pirkei Avos or any, any touch on any of the ikkarei emuna, so the question is, so what does this mean practically? Not just what does it mean theoretically, abstractly, in the in the upper spheres? What does it mean for me practically? What does it mean in terms of how I should think, how I should believe, what I do that perhaps I should be giving up on, what changes I need to introduce in into my life? Halevai we should all, all be zocheh with with the adequate hachanos for emlofanai malchuyos, with the reaffirmation, rededication to the emuna and Chavakuk's mandate should be one which becomes a true and accurate description of each and every one of us.