Kol Dodi Dofek 2

I think we've reached a few ethos here. Hayahadut as he listed the Adam, the Ben Adam, the Tofat Hametziut as he refers to it as Tishkosh or Chipui to be covered up. And so he continues in the Sefer. וכל נסיון להפחית ערכם של הניגוד והאיבה שבקיום, any attempt to minimize the bifurcation within existence between Ra and Tov,

לא יביא את האדם לא לידי מנוחת הנפש ולא לידי תפיסת הסוד האקזיסטנציאלי.

Let's summarize that and then try to process how Hashem then. But הרע הוא עובדה שאין להכחישה. One can't deny the fact of evil.

ישנו סבל וישנם ייסורים שהם בתופעת העולם. מי שרצה להטעות את עצמו בהסח הדעת מן הרע שבהוויה

or by רומנטיזציה של חיי האדם אינו אלא שוטה וחוזה הזיות. He is delusional. אי אפשר להתגבר על מפלצת הרע, the monster of evil, Bemachshava Filosofit Spekulativit. לכן הכריעה היהדות כי האדם השקוע במעמקי גורליות כפולה, a person who's stuck in the depths of a calcified fatality,

לשווא יבקש פתרון בעיית הרע בתוך מחשבה ספקולטיבית כי לעולם לא ימצאנו.

It's futile to look for the solution of the problem of evil in the framework of speculative philosophical thought because you will never find it.

ודאי כי עדותה של התורה על היצור שהוא טוב מאוד אמיתית היא.

Of course, when the Torah says וירא אלקים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאוד, of course that's true.

אולם אין זה אמור אלא מבחינת ההצצה האינסופית של היוצר,

but that's from the point of view, from the vantage point, from the infinite vantage point of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So here just initially just to review and reiterate what we were saying yesterday. The view that the Rav is here rejecting, which we pointed out is essentially what the Rambam says in the Moreh, he's not rejecting it on the theological plane. The problem of evil the Rav says is one that exists on two different levels. It exists on a theological level, on a philosophical level. How can you have evil in the Ribbono Shel Olam's world? Ribbono Shel Olam is Ach Tov. So how can there be evil in his world? That's a philosophical, theological question and that's the level on which the Rambam deals with it. It also has, as we spoke about yesterday, certain practical applications as well, certain profound mussar applications, implications as well. But fundamentally, the Rambam is dealing with it on that level. But the problem exists on another level as well, which is on the level of the human level, on the level of human experience. There's an infinite gap obviously between what's true from a Hakadosh Baruch Hu's perspective at times, an infinite gap and what's true in terms of the reality of our experience. And and that's what we explained yesterday. It's on that level that the Rav is saying that the approach of Emunah u-Vitachon if you overextend it and you think that that's going to be a solution or a perspective on the level of human experiential level, it's not. So with that, let's let's maybe re-read the first line of this section. היהדות עם גישתה הריאליסטית לאדם ולמעמדו בתוך המציאות. Yahadut with its realistic approach to man and his standing within the world, within existence. Halacha is oriented, it responds, halacha is oriented towards human reality. So for instance, on the next page, or the next page, or the page after that, yes, so soon the Rav is going to quote the mishna in Berachot: חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה. So Chazal explicitly speak of ra and tov. והנה נתתי לפניך היום את הטוב ואת הרע. Chazal explicitly speak of ra and tov. אי כל מן דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. One of the zayin krovei niftar, so Chazal describe that as ra and a person makes a Baruch Dayan Ha'emet. אי כל מן דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. So how do you reconcile those two? So the answer is, obviously on an ultimate level, of course it's true that אי כל מן דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד, but on the level of human experience, there are many things that we experience as ra. That's what and the Rav is saying that halacha guides us in terms of our human reality. It doesn't deny the human reality and that's one element of its of the realism that he's speaking of. There are others he's clearly alluding to much more than that, but this is the feature, the aspect of the realism that's relevant in this context. But halacha in general is very, very realistic. All the harchakos that that we have in terms of things like issur yichud, harchakos between husband and wife when she's a niddah, all based on this realism of halacha, that halacha is very realistic. The reality is that we have a very strong yetzer hara and unless there are syagim in place, unless there are harchakos in place, so then it's going to yield, it's going to lead to problematic behavior. Other religions, lehavdil elef havdalos, think that kedushah means to sort of ignore, ignore the yetzer hara. When one ignores the yetzer hara, so one ends up with a clergy which is characterized by all kinds of sordid behavior, not with kedushah. When one is realistic... About in general when one is realistic so then one can, one can achieve, one can attain.

בהסתכלות החלקית של האדם הסופי אין הטוב המוחלט שביצירה נחשף.

Given the partial viewpoint, the partial view of finite man, within that the absolute goodness of existence is not revealed. Ve-haniggud bolet beyoter. The contrast between again what we perceive as tov va-ra is just so prominent. Ve-eino nitpas be-vittuy. And on the human level it can't, it can't be denied.

ישנו רע שלא ניתן לפירוש ולהבנה. ורק תפיסת העולם בשלמותו.

Only if one could grasp, see the world in its entirety.

רק כזאת השקפה יכולה לאפשר לאדם את ההצצה לתוך מבט הסבל.

That would allow a person to look into, metzitz bein ha-charakim, to peer into, to look into the essence of suffering. וכל זמן שהשגת האדם מצומצמת ומסורסת היא. As long as a person's apprehension is limited and truncated. Sarsehu ve-darshehu.

ואינו רואה אלא קטעים בודדים בדרמה הקוסמית ובעלילה הכבירה של ההיסטוריה.

He just sees isolated parts of the cosmic drama of of the historical odyssey.

אי אפשר לו לחדור לתוך כבשונה של הרע ולחווית הסבל. משל למה הדבר דומה לאדם המסתכל בשטיח נהדר מעשה חושב שציורו מרהיב עין ומלא הוד.

Which has beautiful embroidery. הוא מביט בו מצידו השמאלי. He sees it mitziddo ha-semali. He doesn't see it from the front, he sees it from the back. So what he sees is all the threads sticking out in the back of the embroidery. You don't see the the beautiful design.

האם הבטה כזאת תהפוך למקור חוויה אסתטית נשגבה? לדאבוננו הגדול אנו מביטים על העולם מצידו השמאלי. לפיכך אין בידינו לתפוס את מסגרת ההוויה הכוללת שרק בתוכה אפשר לגלות את תוכניתה ומהותה של פעולת הקדוש ברוך הוא.

So I'm not positive about this but I think this is what's intended here. You know the the famous mashal seemingly which which speaks to this point. A mashal let's say you you read, you go to a play, right, the play consists of four acts and you're there only for act two. Whichever the act you're there for and you come out saying the whole thing was ridiculous, nothing made any sense, nothing was resolved, nothing nothing cohered in the play. So the obvious pushback to that is I think that they give another mashal that someone is passing through town and spends a Shabbos in a certain town and he sees how the gabbai is allocating the aliyos. So for Kohen, he calls a young man, bypasses the ziknei kehuna sitting in the front of the shul, some of them even on the mizrach, and he bypasses all of them. He calls this very young Kohen, gives him the aliya. And then, you know, kahana ve-kahana. And he walks out after davening shaking his head at the lack of judgment and lack of discretion in giving out the aliyos. And someone comes and tells him, Reb Yid, you weren't here last week, you weren't here two weeks ago, you weren't here three weeks ago. You have no perspective on what was happening this week. So the Rav doesn't give either of those meshalim, right? He doesn't give either of those meshalim. He gives the mashal of looking at it from a different, from the back as opposed to the front. He very conspicuously, kemidumeh, very conspicuously bypasses, he doesn't opt for either of those meshalim. Why? Because what those meshalim, I mean those meshalim are true in the sense that, you know, ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה ואם בגבורות שמונים שנה. So we're here for such a small slice of history. Again, it's not even one act of the play, it's not even one Shabbos. And in that sense the meshalim certainly are true. But on another sense what those meshalim imply is that, oh, if only זה ספר תולדות אדם. If a person could see everything from Adam HaRishon until bias ha-Moshiach, so then he would understand everything. Then he would understand everything. And lich'ora what the Rav's mashal captures is that that's not the only difference. It's not just that the Ribbono Shel Olam sees the, he's been there for the entire play, he's been there for every Shabbos this year and has seen how the gabbai is giving out the aliyos. The Ribbono Shel Olam's reality and our reality are not the same. The reality which the Ribbono Shel Olam, again speaking anthropomorphically, perceives in His infinitude is not our reality. And even if we could have the benefit of six thousand years of film reel to see everything, that wouldn't put us on equal footing. And that's what the Rav's mashal captures. And that's why, yeah, of course it's true, וירא אלהים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאד. Of course that's true, but it's not something that we, because we're finite, it's not so much the mortality as it is the being finite. See the other mashal, the more popular mashal... emphasize our mortality that we're only here for a short period of time. The Rav's moshel says no, as well as that we're here forever, but man who's finite can't ever see and grasp what Hakadosh Baruch Hu who's infinite (in quotation marks) sees. And because of that, we don't see Hakadosh Baruch Hu's reality. Our reality is not His reality and memela that's why you have this gap or discrepancy between what the Torah states which is obviously 100 percent true and between our reality. This converges, it meshes very well. I think they quote beshem Rav Chaim, it's in a different Likkutim, it's recorded. They quote beshem Rav Chaim that the velt makes a mistake. The velt thinks that le'asid lavo we'll understand everything, that when Moshiach comes and then we'll be looking retrospectively so then we'll understand everything. Rav Chaim said no, you see in Divrei Nevi'im which again ליכא מידי דלא רמיזא באורייתא. You see in Divrei Nevi'im בטח בה' ועשה טוב. There's an inyan of bitachon, there's an inyan of emunah. So if it's a mitzvah to have emunah and again emunah is necessary where a person where the yedi'ah stops is where the emunah begins. A person has yedi'ah that there's a Ribbono Shel Olam. He has a yedi'ah that the Ribbono Shel Olam is tov and then the emunah takes over when a person can't see how this prat is tov. Emunah is a mitzvah. Mitzvos are lo betelos. Mitzvos are forever. And that jives very well with the Rav's moshel which emphasizes not mortal man, but finite man. How does that say Gemara that le'asid lavo everything is ha'tov ve'hametiv? Is that like when we reached a madreiga of sort of seeing everything in an infinite way? I don't know. But again that from Hakadosh Baruch Hu's perspective it was always ha'tov ve'hametiv. So for us to kind of replicate it in avodah, isn't that a key mahalach of Rosh Hashana? It's not a question of replicating. Let's say a person should follow his personal minhag, what his father did, what his grandfather did, what his great-grandfather did. So let's say one is zoche to have a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather who had such eimas hadin, avoiding this question, let's assume that they had such eimas hadin on Rosh Hashana they used to cry. But the person himself, okay, sure, person says it's the minhag of the family to cry, my father cried, my grandfather, but what if I don't feel that eimas hadin? So I should have someone punch me in the stomach so it'll hurt so much that I'll start crying to be mekayeim v'becho s'bechah? so that's something which is transposable to the human level. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu is described as channun, that's transposable to the human level. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu is described as omniscient, as omnipotent, so that's not transposable to the human level. Be-kitzur, ha-Ani ha-Goreli, the ani of fate, shoel she'eila analytical metaphysical bi-yehas la-ra. He asks an analytical metaphysical question: why is there evil? ושאלה זו לא ניתנה לפתרון ואין עליה תשובה. On the human level, given our vantage point, given our experience, there is no answer to this question. בדימנסיא השנייה של קיום האדם, in the second dimension of human existence, ye'ud, not fate but destiny, מבססת שאלת הרע בצורה חדשה. It assumes a different form. Kiyum ye'udi keitzad? What does it mean to live not an existence of fate but a life of destiny? Zehu kiyum pa'il, it's an active existence. כשאדם ניצב מול הסביבה, a person stands vis-à-vis his surroundings, she-huslach ba, into which he was thrust, מתוך הבנת ייחודו וסגולתו. He recognizes his singularity, his special abilities, cheiruto ve-yekholto, his freedom and his ability שלא מקפח במאבק מחוץ את עצמותו ועצמאותו. He doesn't have to in any way diminish his independence in his encounter, in his struggle with the external world.

סיסמת האני היהודי היא: על כרחך אתה נולד ועל כרחך אתה מת אבל ברצונך החופשי אתה חי. האדם נולד כאובייקט,

he's not consulted. Met ke-objekt, he's not consulted. אבל ביכולתו לחיות כסובייקט, as a subject, ke-yotzer u-mekhadesh, המטביע על חייו את חותמו האינדיבידואלי. He can live as an individual, not as some biological organism which is governed by laws of biology. והחורג מן האפטומטיות אל הפעילות היצירנית, and it can move away, can emerge from anonymity to creative activity.

תעודתו של אדם בעולמו על פי היהדות היא להפוך גורל לייעוד.

Kiyum muf'al, I think in this edition that I'm using there's a misprint, the next one should be mushpah, that's what it should be. קיום מופעל ומושפע, לקיום פועל ומשפיע. Instead of being acted upon and influenced, he should act and influence. Kiyum, again a misprint, קיום מתוך אונס מבוכה ואלימות, instead of an existence of duress, of confusion, of muteness, לקיום מלא רצון מעוף ויוזמה, with will and vision and initiative. בכוחו של הקדוש ברוך הוא le-yetzirat ha-perat

ממצה את כל תפקידו. פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ וכבשוה.

Kivshuha et ha-svivah, conquer, והדבירו אותה תחתיכם. דבר אחד לדור, it means a ruler, so

והדבירו אותה תחתיכם. ואם לא תמשלו בה היא תשעבד אתכם. הייעוד מעניק לו לאדם עמדה חדשה בעולמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא.

Destiny grants a person a new standing in Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world ונותן לו כתר מלכות a crown והאדם הופך שותפו של הקדוש ברוך הוא במעשה בראשית. So this idea maybe we'll just broach it now and obviously it's going to continue in the next parts here. It's obviously true on the one hand that a person goes through life with control over absolutely nothing. A person doesn't control anything in life. A person can adhere to a very healthy diet and a very healthy lifestyle and he should obviously and אף על פי כן he can get sick. A person can do all the right hishtadlus and rachmana litzlan have severe financial problems. A person doesn't control anything in life, absolutely nothing. Hakol bidei shamayim. Me'idach gisa a person controls everything in life because ultimately the significance of what happens in the external world depends upon a person's attitude and reaction to it. And in that sense the הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים is the chutz as a person controls everything. A person again can't control his health but the way he responds if rachmana litzlan there is a health challenge that determines whether the health challenge is just something that is limiting, is something that's diminishing, is something that's frustrating, or whether it's an occasion to be מקבל דין שמים באהבה to grow in his emunah bitachon. A person controls nothing, a person controls everything. And that's what the Rav is talking about here in terms of the ani hagoreil li is not only, of course it means this as well in terms of taking initiative to do, but even when a person isn't taking initiative, maybe there are some situations where a person can't take initiative and a person is just left with his, the only thing a person does control is what his attitudes are, what his reactions are, what his thoughts are, but ultimately that's everything. Ultimately that's everything. Okay, so to be continued be'ezras Hashem. I think at 1:30 so if it's still quiet down the hall so we'll I think we said yesterday that they would leave a little bit. See? Everyone was laughing, see they left. Okay. So if it's still quiet at 1:30 so then we'll go into the beis medrash otherwise we'll come back.