Transcript
Okay, בוקר טוב boker tov, good morning. We continue our study of נתיבות שלום Nesivos Shalom of the Slonimer Rebbe. And there's so much, our parsha is so rich, כי תשא Ki Sisa, between the notion, I really struggled which piece to do together. He has a beautiful piece on the importance of the חצי שקל chaf shekel and how when one is feeling distance from השם Hashem, when one is feeling sort of despondent, hopeless, and helpless, by connecting with the Jewish people, by complementing and supplementing one another, is how we raise ourselves up. He has beautiful pieces on שבת Shabbos. שבתותי תשמרו Shabsosai tishmoru, ושמרו בני ישראל את השבת v'shamru Bnei Yisrael es haShabbos. The notion of Shabbos being קודש kodesh and the central part of Shabbos, my, for a long time I worked, I still work hard on Shabbos, and I work hard during the week, but for a long time, I didn't look forward to Shabbos, it was a work day. But after our past summer and some renewed commitment, energy, and to Shabbos, and adopting some new מנהגים minhagim on Shabbos, I look forward all week to Shabbos. Shabbos is incredible. We were on our BRS בית מדרש Beis Medrash fly-in to New York last week, we went to the Skverer Rebbe and the Skverer Rebbe, he said this in Yiddish, so I understood about it, maybe a third of it, but I think what he was saying. He was talking about the importance of Shabbos, the connection. I was telling him how inspired I was from last summer, the Shabbos there, and some of the changes I've made, and he talked about, it says כל מענג את השבת kol m'aneg es haShabbos, which we usually interpret to mean, when you get pleasure from Shabbos, whether it's the delicacies, whether it's the disconnecting from all the chaos and obligations, responsibilities. But when one gets pleasure from Shabbos. But he talked about the notion of, do you give pleasure to Shabbos? Do you make Shabbos proud of you? Do you give Shabbos נחת nachas? Meaning Shabbos is a relationship. The גמרא Gemara already says that Sunday has Monday, and Tuesday has Wednesday, and Thursday has Friday, and Shabbos came to Hashem and said, who do I have? I don't have anybody to hang out with. Hashem said, I'm giving you the Jewish people, you'll hang out together. So do you give the pleasure to Shabbos of hanging out together? Anyway, there's several pieces to have chosen and I chose this piece about לא חטאו ישראל אלא להורות תשובה לרבים lo chatu Yisrael ela l'horos teshuva l'rabim. The story of the חטא העגל chet ha'egel. The Jewish people, the most egregious sin perhaps in our past, where on our wedding night, can you imagine this couple go back to the hotel, the honeymoon suite, and the husband says, I'm going to get some ice from the ice machine, and then he slips into another room and he has infidelity, has an affair, he's disloyal on the wedding night. The ריבונו של עולם Ribbono Shel Olam brings us under הר סיני Har Sinai, our חופה chuppah. He gives us His sacred Torah, and it doesn't take long. משה Moshe is on top of the mountain, celebrating, and, and on the base of the mountain, here we are having an affair. We're cheating, the חטא העגל chet ha'egel. Very, very difficult סוגיא sugya. I think to me, the most compelling explanation is the כוזרי Kuzari, רבי יהודה הלוי Rav Yehuda HaLevi, who says that really it was not a act of infidelity. We didn't worship an idol. We were worshiping Hashem, but we were trying to put Him in a box. Until then, we had Moshe as the intermediary, the physical, tangible intermediary with which to connect to Hashem. He, God forbid, wasn't the embodiment of Hashem. We don't believe a human being, בשר ודם basar v'dam, can embody Hashem. But we, as physical, material beings, need a physical, material connection. That's how we connect. So when Moshe disappears on a mountain and we miscalculated and thought he was never coming back, the Jewish people panicked and they said, how are we going to physically connect? We need some manifestation. We live in the physical world, that's how we connect. So they built an עגל egel. Not as an alternative to Hashem, but as a means of connecting to Hashem. And that's what Hashem says, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's a legitimate need. I can respect and understand that need, but you don't call the shots. You don't get to decide how to connect to me in the physical world. I'll tell you how. And that's why the משכן Mishkan is the antidote to the חטא העגל chet ha'egel. It's why Moshe smashes the לוחות luchos. Because by breaking the לוחות luchos, what was the statement he was making? That there's nothing that physically, inherently, or intrinsically has the holiness of Hashem. Everything in this physical world is just physical. God is למעלה l'mala, God is above, God is beyond, that we can't limit him. We can't bind him to the physical world. So he drops the לוחות luchos. He smashes them to show them God is beyond anything. You can't put him in a box. You can't limit him. You can't hold him to just a tangible. So the חטא העגל chet ha'egel is not an act, says the כוזרי Kuzari, of infidelity. It wasn't an act of rebelliousness. It was actually in some ways a beautiful effort to connect to Hashem, just a misguided one. We're not entitled to use our creativity to do what we want, to explore, to try to find Hashem, to put Hashem, make him conform to our needs, but rather we conform to what he tells us is the best way to get close to him.Anyway, so that's not what this piece is about either. This piece is about, how do you come back from that? How do you come back from such a miscalculation, such a misguided conclusion? You know, it's like a person, I don't know, they're trying to get close to their spouse, so they come up with some cockamamie creative, really wrong way to get close to their spouse because that's the way they think they can, and their spouse discovers it. They say, what do you mean? This is how I thought I could get close to you by doing this. I won't try to give any graphic examples. But and the spouse says, you want to get close to me, just ask me. Ask me what I need. Ask me what I want. Ask me how we can connect. Don't try to presuppose and presume and creatively try to connect to me in your own imaginative way, when in fact, you haven't connected to me, you've driven a wedge, you've distanced yourself from me. So how do you come back from that miscalculation, from being misguided? אמרו חז''ל Amru Chazal, the גמרא Gemara in עבודה זרה Avodah Zarah says, לא חטאו ישראל אלא להורות תשובה לרבים lo chatu Yisrael ela l'horos teshuva l'rabim. When the Jewish people made this terrible mistake, they did so in order to set a precedent, to teach us. Now, that kind of lets them off the hook, right? That we're not going to hold them accountable for what they did because really what they did was to teach us, you can make a mistake and come back from it. So they were still accountable. They weren't off the hook, but we did learn that lesson. How? לכן בא חז\"ל פרשת העגל היא פרשת התשובה L'chazal, parshas ha'egel hi parshas ha'teshuva. So the Slonimer Rebbe says what חז''ל Chazal did in that גמרא Gemara in עבודה זרה Avodah Zarah was to say, when you learn, when you read פרשת כי תשא Parshas Ki Sisa, read it not as the סוגיא sugya, this is not the story of when things go wrong. This is the story of how to make things right. You can extrapolate from here, you see, we were always fallible, we were always limited, we'll never be okay, we can't control ourselves. They did it, we do it. Let's move on. Let's give up on ourselves. Let's have no confidence in ourselves. But instead, read the סוגיא sugya of the story of the עגל egel as the סוגיא sugya of תשובה teshuva, פרשת התשובה parshas ha'teshuva. To learn from it what happens when something goes wrong. How do you recover? How do you restore a relationship? There's an amazing TED talk. There's a woman named Esther Perel, P-E-R-E-L. Jewish woman, traditional Jewish woman, parents were survivors. She grew up first in Holland, I forgot which Norwegian country, and then in Israel, and then in America. She's very, very popular therapist. She's written a lot of books and she has a TED talk with millions of views about how to come back from infidelity. When one spouse cheats, how do you come back? Does it mean the end, the death of a relationship, or can you actually repair a relationship to make it better than ever? And she has a, it's worth watching, like all TED talks, it's like eight minutes long. It's amazing, even for a relationship that please God has never had cheating. It's very powerful. And she talks about, everyone is going to be married more than once. The only question is will it be to the same person or a different person? So an act of cheating, while it reveals and exposes a major flaw in the relationship, if you're able to then address it and heal it, you can have a better relationship than ever. If you're unable to address it, if exposing those flaws just escalates them, then it's going to be the death, the end of a relationship. And she talks about that, that therefore how it can, how it can make things better. And that reminds me of this פרשת התשובה parshas ha'teshuva, the notion of you have a flaw in a relationship, how do you come back? ינעים לשון המפרשים Yin'im leshon ham'farshim, וירא את העגל ומחולות וישלך מידיו את הלוחות וישבר אותם vayarei es ha'egel u'mecholos vayishlach m'yadav es ha'luchos vayishaber osam. Moshe comes down from the mountain and he sees the golden calf and he sees the circles, the dancing. לבד'יק'ע טאנצן lebedike tantzen. And he throws down the לוחות luchos and he breaks them. דבתחילה כשהיה אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא לך רד כי שחת עמך עדיין לא שבר את הלוחות d'b'tchila k'she'amar lo haKadosh Baruch Hu lech red ki shicheis amcha, adayin lo shibar es ha'luchos. הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu first tells him, he says, look, I got security cameras everywhere. Hashem says, I've got eyes everywhere. While we're up here studying Torah, know that your spouse is down there cheating on you. I got a security camera. And Moshe doesn't break the לוחות luchos at that moment. Moshe doesn't react that way then. דכל עוד שלא ראה את השמחים על העגל היה הדבר לא כל כך חמור בעיניו d'chol od shelo ra'ah es ha'smeichim al ha'egel, haya ha'davar lo kol kach chamur b'einav. Till he sees with his own eyes, not just hears what they did wrong, but when he sees the pleasure, the joy they took in it, that's when he reacts. ורק אחר שראה את המחולות על העגל שהם היו שמחים בו, אז שבר את הלוחות, ונמצא שעצם חטא העגל עוד לא היה כל כך חמור, כי אם המחילה ששמחו בזה, שהוא ביטל את הצורך לשבר את הלוחות v'rak achar she'ra'ah es ha'mecholos al ha'egel she'hem hayu smeichim bo, az shibar es ha'luchos. V'nimtza she'etzem chet ha'egel od lo haya kol kach chamur, ki im ha'mechila she'samchu b'zeh, she'hu bitel es ha'tzorech l'shaber es ha'luchos. What is the catalyst for Moshe breaking the tablets? Moshe doesn't destroy the לוחות luchos just from hearing about what they did wrong. What motivates him? What pushes him over the edge to break the לוחות luchos? Only when he sees them singing and dancing and partying and celebrating what they had done. וביאור בזה דהקדוש ברוך הוא ברא רחמן ועביד דרך לתשובה u'veiur b'zeh d'haKadosh Baruch Hu bara rachman v'avid derech l'teshuva. Says the Slonimer Rebbe what this means is that הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Almighty, with His infinite compassion, gave us a way back. He said, when you do something wrong, you're only human. And humans make mistakes. We say the wrong thing, look at the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, go the wrong place. We're humans, we make mistake. We have a יצר הרע yetzer hara. Hashem implanted it in us, in it. He knows it. שאפילו אחר שיהודי כבר נכשל והגיע למצב שפל וירוד ביותר, ברא לו הקדוש ברוך הוא תשובה מתוך החטא עצמו she'afilu achar she'Yehudi kvar nichshal v'higia l'matzav shafel v'yarud b'yoser, bara lo haKadosh Baruch Hu teshuva m'toch ha'chet atzmo. Hashem created a medicine, an antidote within the mistake itself. את הייסורי מצפון שיש לו אחר החטא es yisurai matzpun she'yesh lo achar ha'chet. שלבו שבור בקרבו על חטאו, וגם אם הוא אינו מרגיש בזה אך בפנימיות הלב שבור הוא מאוד she'libo shavur b'kirbo al chato, v'gam im hu eino margish b'zeh, ach b'pnimiyus ha'lev shavur hu me'od. The notion of shame, the notion of guilt, are really healthy emotions. Not like the Jewish way that we obsess over guilt and we create guilt and we make people feel guilty about things they shouldn't feel guilty about. I don't mean like Jewish mother guilt. That's not healthy. But the idea that when we do something wrong, when we cross a boundary, when we do a violation, we feel bad about it. We feel less about it. We're ashamed of it. That's really, really healthy. וזה בבחינת קושט דחיותא מתעריש בתוך החטא גופא, המעורר בו יסורי מצפון שאלי דזה יבוא לשורשו v'zeh b'vchinas kushta d'chiyusa mis'arish b'toch ha'chet gufa, ham'orer bo yisurei matzpun she'al yedei zeh yavo l'shorsho. And why is it so important? Why is it so healthy? I liken shame, בושה busha, spoken a lot about it a lot. I liken it to, to nerves. There's a, there's a neuropathy and there are diseases, I think we've spoken about it, where a person can't feel pain. It's incredibly dangerous when a person's nerves are not functioning and they can't feel pain. They could have internal bleeding. They could cut themselves. They could have a lethal condition and not know it because they don't feel pain. Pain is the greatest gift Hashem gave us. We don't enjoy it. We try to dull or numb it. We create medicines that take it away. But the presence of pain alerts us something's wrong. And if we didn't have the capacity to feel pain and we weren't alerted something was wrong, we couldn't treat it. We couldn't make it better. Shame and guilt are the nerve endings of the soul. They alert us something's wrong. Something's wrong. You should be blushing. Somebody's acting inappropriately, dressed inappropriately, speaking inappropriately. You should feel ashamed. You did something inappropriate. You watched something inappropriate, you said something inappropriate, you did something inappropriate. You crossed the line, you crossed the boundary. Feel shame, feel guilt. And that feeling, the spiritual nerve endings alert you something's wrong. It needs repair. It needs to be addressed. כמאמר חז''ל תיסרך רעתך k'ma'amar Chazal t'yasrech ra'asech. שעל ידי החטא גופא תמונה התשובה, למכה שתסרך רעתך she'al yedei ha'chet gufa t'muna ha'teshuva, l'maka she't'yasrech ra'asech. תסרך רעתך t'yasrech ra'asech means your friend gives you יסורים yissurim. I, if they're giving you יסורים yissurim, how are they your friend? And if they're your friend, why would they give you יסורים yissurim? The answer is, your best friend tells you something's wrong, it needs to be addressed. I want to help you heal. Your enemy says, I'm not going to let the person know they're bleeding out. Your enemy says, I'm not going to alert the person something's really wrong. Your friend says, I'm going to tell you something's really wrong. So the חטא chet, after you do the חטא chet, you make the mistake, you have poor judgment, you have an indiscretion, within the indiscretion, within the mistake is the response, namely, if the חטא chet generates shame, if the mistake generates guilt, and you embrace the guilt to propel you to address what went wrong and make it better, it exposes, it reveals the flaw, maybe a fatal flaw, that in it is the answer. וכן כשאמר הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה שחטאו ישראל בעגל, עדיין לא היה בדעתו לשבר את הלוחות, כי היה סובר שוודאי יש להם את הקושטא דחיותא, ולבם שבור בקרבם והם בוכים ומתייאשים, ועל כל שום נכשל ונפל V'chein k'she'amar haKadosh Baruch Hu l'Moshe she'chatu Yisrael ba'egel, adayin lo hayah b'da'ato l'shaber es ha'luchos, ki haya sover she'vadai yesh lahem es ha'kushta d'chiyusa, v'libam shavur b'kirbam v'hem bochim u'misyachashim, v'al kol shum nichshal v'nafal. So when Moshe is on top of the mountain and Hashem says, do you know what's going on on the bottom of that mountain? Can you believe it? They built an עגל egel, they're worshiping it. And Moshe says, okay, I'll deal with it. I'm going to go down and deal with it. What's Moshe thinking in that moment, says the Slonimer Rebbe? Moshe's thinking, what is he going to find at the base of the mountain? People sitting on the floor with torn sackcloth, in a state of fasting, crying and praying and saying, I, so ashamed. I feel so guilty. We're so humiliated. We're so pathetic. We can't believe what we just did. We're broken. We feel terrible. Instead, what does he find? כשהוא ראה שמחוללים ושמחים בזה, ונשיאו שאז בגמרי, שמראים שהם יכולים עוד לעזור להם K'she'hu ra'ah she'm'chol'lim v'smeichim b'zeh, v'nish'o she'az b'gemurei, she'mar'im she'hem yecholim od la'azor lahem. When he comes down and he sees they're singing and dancing, there's a 20-piece orchestra and a four-piece choir, and they're singing and they're tanzen and circles and concentric circles, and they're partying over their mistake. He says, this is hopeless. Forget it. Making a mistake, that's human. Celebrating the mistake versus regretting the mistake, that's what we're accountable for. It's almost, and this is what the Slonimer Rebbe is going to say here, and I find this so uplifting. Not as an excuse, not letting us off the hook, but it's uplifting. הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not disappointed in us that we make mistakes. We make mistakes. יצר הרע Yetzer hara gets a hold of us. You got that juicy gossip, it's so hard not to share it. And you're clicking through the internet and it's so hard to turn away when something attracts your attention. And countless other, you want to sleep in, you're exhausted, you come late to shul, you don't come to shul, you come up with excuses for shul. There's countless examples. Hashem understands there's a יצר הרע yetzer hara. It eats at us, it gnaws at us, it defeats us. He can understand, he can accept that. What he can't tolerate and accept is how do we react afterwards. So when you finally schlep yourself out of bed and you take a shower and you've missed all the מניינים minyanim, do you say, ach, I feel so terrible. I feel so low. I feel so pathetic. How do I make sure that tomorrow morning I jump out of bed and make minyan? Or do you say, oh, what a schluff. That was fantastic. I got to do this more often. That was great. Nobody noticed. BRS has seven מניינים minyanim in the morning. Nobody knows which one I was at and I wasn't at. That was great. I'm going to do this more often. How do we react after the mistake? How do we react afterwards? So when Moshe sees they're partying, וישלך את הלוחות vayishlach es ha'luchos, that's when he throws them down. שראה שאין להם שייכות ללוחות, שכבר נתקו מהשורש, מהחלק אלוקא ממעל, התובע מיהודי ללא הרף איכה, היכן אתה בעולם She'ra'ah she'ein lahem shayachus la'luchos, she'kvar nitku m'ha'shoresh, m'ha'chelek Eloka mima'al, ha'tovea m'Yehudi l'lo heref eicha, heichan ata b'olam? The לוחות luchos are the compass, and they guide us. Where are you in the world? Who are you? Who do you want to be? So Moshe says, I have this compass to guide the Jewish people towards their potential, who they're meant to be, but they don't want to go on this journey. So if you don't want to go on the journey, you don't need a compass. If you're not coming on the trip, you don't need a passport. The לוחות luchos are the passport, they're the compass, they tell us how to get where we're meant to go. But if you're not interested in going on that trip because you're celebrating your mistake and you're excited about your shortcoming, and you're going to do it over again and you have nostalgia and you tell your best friend, you know what I did? I slept in, it was fantastic. I went to such and such a place. It was gevaldik. What do you need a לוחות luchos? What do you need a passport? What do you need a compass? ושבירת הלוחות נחשב למעלתו הגדולה של משה רבינו U'shviras ha'luchos nechshav l'ma'alaso ha'gedola shel Moshe Rabbeinu. And breaking the לוחות luchos is one of the greatest acts. It's the legacy of Moshe. As חז''ל Chazal say on the פסוק pasuk, ולכל היד החזקה אשר עשה משה לעיני כל ישראל u'l'chol ha'yad ha'chazaka asher asah Moshe l'einei kol Yisrael. חזק חזק ונתחזק chazak chazak v'nischazek. This is the end of the Torah. The end of the five books of Moshe. And what does it mean? Moshe did לעיני כל ישראל l'einei kol Yisrael. שנתן לו ליבו לשבור הלוחות לעיניהם she'naso libo lishbor ha'luchos l'eineihem. What was the thing that Moshe did before all the Jewish people? He broke the לוחות luchos. כיוון שמשה רבינו ראה שאין לישראל תקון, כי לבם שלם ואינם שבורים kivan she'Moshe Rabbeinu ra'ah she'ein l'Yisrael tikun, ki libam shalem v'einam shvurim. When he says these are a hopeless and helpless people, how did he know that? Because their hearts are full. They're so excited, they're so happy, they're so, they're so proud of what they did. אינם שבורים einam shvurim. They're not broken. They're not ashamed. They have no guilt. צריך לשבר את לבבם של כל שישים ריבוא בני ישראל tzarich l'shaber es levavam shel kol shishim ribo Bnei Yisrael. He had to break their hearts. How did he break their hearts? When he took off the ring and he gave it back and he said, you don't feel bad about what you did? Here's the ring. I'm out of here. I don't need to be married to you. You made a mistake. I found you looking at something on the internet. I found you flirting with somebody. I found you did something that broke my heart. You brought home some pet I didn't want. I saw you hurt me so badly. So that I can get over. But when you see how much it hurts me, so if you gave it back, ברוך השם Baruch Hashem, that's a tremendous act. It restores the relationship, it makes it better than ever. It's גישמאק geshmak. But if you celebrate it, say, here, I'm out of here. So Moshe says, I'm breaking the לוחות luchos. You don't need the לוחות luchos. We don't have road marriage. We don't have, we don't have romance. That's where Rashi quotes the חז''ל Chazal, הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, יישר כוחך ששיברת yishar kochacha she'shibarta. יישר כוחך ששיברת Yishar kochacha she'shibarta. The ריבונו של עולם Ribbono Shel Olam, these are his לוחות luchos, but he gives Moshe Rabbeinu a יישר כוח yishar koach. ולכך לא הייתה דרך אחרת אלא על ידי שבירת הלוחות, ועל ידי זה יכירו את הקראת מסתתר קרסם, ועל ידי שראו את הלוחות, שהם מעשה שמיים, המכתב מכתב אלוקים, נשברים לעיניהם, ישברו ליבם של כל ישראל וזה היה עבורם דרך לתיקון V'lakach lo hayta derech acheres ela al yedei shviras ha'luchos. Al yedei zeh yakiru es ha'kras mis'tater karsam, v'al yedei she'ra'u es ha'luchos, she'hem ma'aseh shamayim, ha'michtav michtav Elokim, nishbarim l'eineihem, yishbaru libam shel kol Yisrael v'zeh hayah avuram derech l'tikun. So how did you jar the Jewish people? How did you shake them? How did you rattle them out of their complacency, out of their apathy, out of their joy, out of their celebration, out of their lack of guilt? You break the לוחות luchos. You have to do something extreme. You have to do something extraordinary. Breaking the לוחות luchos was, here's the ring back. Breaking the לוחות luchos is, I've scheduled with Rabbi Flueg. It's over. We're done. Then, oh, that's a wake-up call. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll do whatever it takes. You're right. I feel guilty. I feel horrible. Now I see the error of my ways. I'm so sorry. I'll do whatever it takes. So Moshe breaking the לוחות luchos woke the Jewish people and they got so says in סוטה sotah, מוחקין השם במים כדי להטיל שלום בין איש לאשתו mochkin ha'Shem b'mayim k'dei l'hatil shalom bein ish l'ishto. הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu is willing to let his name be erased in order to exonerate the סוטה sotah. הרי כל שכן להתיר שלום בין הקדוש ברוך הוא לישראל harei kol she'kein l'hatir shalom bein haKadosh Baruch Hu l'Yisrael. He was willing to allow his holy לוחות luchos, which were supernatural, miraculous לוחות luchos, to be broken in order to fix, in order to unbreak, to repair the relationship of the Jewish people and Hashem. ובפועל זה שהציל את כלל ישראל. ועל זה נאמר ולכל היד החזקה, שנתן ליבו לשבר את הלוחות לעיני כל ישראל, ובראתם תיקון כלל ישראל, שרק משה בגדלותו יכול לעשות כן U'v'poal zeh she'hitzil es Klal Yisrael. V'al zeh ne'emar v'l'chol ha'yad ha'chazaka, she'natan libo l'shaber es ha'luchos l'einei kol Yisrael, u'v'ra'asam tikun Klal Yisrael, she'rak Moshe b'gadluso yachol la'asos kein. Only Moshe could make that calculation. You can't have some pulpit rabbi who decides, people are talking in shul. He's sick of it. He's going to take the Torah out of the ארון aron and he's going to throw it on the ground and say, if you're going to talk chazaras ha'shatz, we might as well trample on this Torah. Relax, rabbi. I don't know who you think you are. Take a deep breath, relax. Relax. Even the head of the decorum committee would not recommend that. Moshe Rabbeinu could get away with that. Only a Moshe Rabbeinu can get away with that. Such an extreme act to jar the Jewish people, to wake them up. וכל כמו שכתוב כאן הרמב''ן וישמע העם את הדבר הרע הזה ויתאבלו v'chol k'mo she'kasuv kan ha'Ramban, vayishma ha'am es ha'davar ha'ra ha'zeh vayis'abelu. How did they react Taka? Moshe achieved his goal, the mission. How did they react from this extreme act? With extreme mourning, with guilt. לא שתו איש עדיו עליו כאבלים Lo shasu ish edyo alav ka'aveilim. ופני השם הרחמן מלא רחמים כאשר ראה את אבלם, חזר להם עמר בדרך אחר, לא עוד עמר לבני ישראל, עד אתה הישכר עמך והעם, עתה יזכירם בשמם החביב U'p'nei Hashem ha'rachaman malei rachamim, ka'asher ra'ah es avlam, chazar lahem omer b'derech acher, lo od omer l'Vnei Yisrael. Ad ata hizkir amcha v'ha'am, ata yazkirem b'sh'mam ha'chaviv. So, until now he says, hey Moshe, you know, you know, like when you're really upset at your kids and they're frustrating you, driving you out of your mind. I don't know my case, I'm supposed to be, you're not called, you're not supposed to call it babysitting when they're your children. Let's say I'm babysitting and they're driving, I call Yocheved, your kids are driving me crazy. I mean your kids. Your kids are driving me crazy. So where do we learn that from? Hashem. He says to Moshe, your nation, you know what they're doing at the bottom of the mountain, your nation? But once Moshe breaks the לוחות luchos, and he wakes them up from their, from their, from their delirium, yeah, so then they ויתאבלו vayis'abelu, then they're mourning, they're guilty, they're broken, they're rattled. Now Hashem calls them בני ישראל Bnei Yisrael, my children, my children again. Are you still accountable for the עגל egel? Yes. But you know what? The fact that you feel ashamed and guilt, that shows there's a נשמה neshama inside you. Our relationship still has a spark. It can be re-ignited, it can be fanned, and the flames can rage again. What preserves the spark? What preserves the, the pilot light in a relationship? The capacity for shame, for guilt. Once you're beyond that, it's over. If you do things and you don't even feel bad about it, the death knell. ועל פי זה יש להבין מה שנתן במדרש שמואל, פתח על כתבי קודש, פרשת העגל, הפסוק ויתן אל משה ככלתו לדבר אתו שני לוחות העדות, עניין שבזה הקדים הקדוש ברוך הוא רפואה למכה, ולאחר מכה זו כמו מעשה העגל שנפלו ישראל בחטא חמור ביותר, איך יכלו לשוב ולצאת מתוך מציאות נפולה ושוב לחזור אל הקדושות, על כן הקדים הקדוש ברוך הוא רפואה למכה ונתן להם את התורה, שכוח התורה יכל לתם ויעלם משאול תחתיה אליה נפלו V'al pi zeh yesh l'havin ma she'natan b'Midrash Shmuel, pasach al kitvei kodesh, Parshas ha'Egel, ha'pasuk vayiten el Moshe k'chaloso l'daber ito shnei luchos ha'eidus. Inyan she'b'zeh hikdim haKadosh Baruch Hu refuah l'maka. V'l'achar maka zu k'mo ma'aseh ha'egel she'naflu Yisrael b'chet chamur b'yoser, eich yechlu lashuv v'latzeis m'toch metzius nefula v'shuv lachazor el ha'kedushos? Al kein hikdim haKadosh Baruch Hu refuah l'maka v'nasan lahem es haTorah, she'koach haTorah yachal l'tam v'ya'alem mi'she'ol tachtiya eleha naflu. Why is the story of the חטא העגל chet ha'egel introduced with, ויתן אל משה ככלתו vayiten el Moshe k'chaloso, when Moshe was done receiving the Torah, that's when the חטא העגל chet ha'egel happened? Why do you have to review history? We know that the giving of the Torah happened. Because הקדוש ברוך הוא haKadosh Baruch Hu gives the רפואה refuah before the מכה maka. He gives the antidote before he gives the illness. The Torah is the response to all this. Where do we find the resiliency, the courage? Where do we find the focus? Where do we find the strength to feel guilty, to have shame? We find it in Torah. By learning Torah, by embracing Torah, by living Torah, Torah is that compass. When you take those two לוחות luchos, when you learn Torah every day, when you live Torah, when you interpret not only the world events, but your events, your mistakes, your successes, when it all is seen through the filter of Torah, it is the compass to help us understand. So when you're on fire, even when you're making a mistake, you say, you know what? I'm better than that. I'm capable of more than that. That's not who I am. That's not who I want to be. כמוהו בשאר כתובים החטא וגם אשר נשן על ידי שינה, אבל וישבו מאוד בקרבם. ומתוך שהכירו בגודל עומק החטא, ובגודל הפגם שפגמו במעשיהם. וערך הכרתה של יהודי ומהות חטא, כך מחפר השם יתברך על עוונו K'mohu b'sh'ar kituvim ha'chet v'gam asher nishan al yedei shinah, aval v'yashvu me'od b'kirbam. U'mitoch she'hikiru b'godel omek ha'chet, u'v'godel ha'pgam she'pagmu b'ma'aseihem. V'erech ha'karaso shel Yehudi v'mahuso ha'chet, kach m'chaper Hashem yisborach al avono. It's directly proportional to the degree that we feel ashamed, to the degree that we feel we're capable of more, הקדוש ברוך הוא haKadosh Baruch Hu forgives us. והכוח הזה של שבירת הלב הוא מכוח התורה הקדושה. אז זה שבזהר על פסוק והודע לו חטאו, אורייתא כמו דע לו חובוי. היינו דפירש והודע לו חטאו, שיודע ומרגיש בגודל עומק של החטא, איך מסוגל אדם בשר ודם לחזור לזאת הרעי, כמה חמור מעשה שעשה הפך מרצון השם יתברך. הרי כל עוונו הוא לפי קטנות דעתו. רק אורייתא כמו דע לי. כוח התורה פוסק את דעתו להכיר בגודל חטאו V'ha'koach ha'zeh shel shivron ha'lev hu m'koach haTorah ha'kedosha. Az zeh she'b'Zohar al pasuk v'hodah lo chato, Oraisa k'moda lo chovoi. Heinu d'pirush v'hodah lo chataso, she'yodea u'margish b'godel omek shel ha'chet, eich mesugal adam basar v'dam lachazor l'zos ha'ra'i, kama chamur ma'aseh she'asa hefech m'ratzon Hashem yisborach. Harei kol avono hu l'fi katnus da'ato. Rak Oraisa k'moda lai. Koach haTorah posek es da'ato l'hakir b'godel cheto. How could you know how bad, how egregious what you did is? How could you know? You're just a lowly בשר ודם basar v'dam. The answer is Torah. Torah is the, gives us the metric. Torah is the measure of what's right and what's wrong, what we should feel guilt and how guilty we should feel. ועל כן נתן הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה את התורה להקדים רפואה למכה. כי כוח התורה פסק על ימיו הכרה גדולה של חטא, והגיעו לשברון לב אמיתי, מבחינת ויתאבלו, וכאמור שלא לב נשבר ונדכה אף אם יגיעו לשפיעזות ולא סוזה, ועל ידי שכוח התורה מעורר להכיר בגודל עומק החטא, ליבו שבור ומדכא, בכך הקדוש ברוך הוא ברחמן. כדבר הרמב\"ן, תהשם הרחמן מלא רחמים V'al kein natan haKadosh Baruch Hu l'Moshe es haTorah l'hakdim refuah l'maka. Ki koach haTorah pasak al yamav hakara gedola shel chet, v'higiu l'shivron lev amiti, m'vchinas vayis'abelu. V'ka'amur she'lo lev nishbar v'nidke, af im yagiu l'sh'fi'ezus v'lo sozeh, v'al yedei she'koach haTorah me'orer l'hakir b'godel omek ha'chet, libo shavur u'm'duchdach, b'kach haKadosh Baruch Hu b'rachman. K'dvar haRamban, TaHashem ha'rachaman malei rachamim. הקדוש ברוך הוא HaKadosh Baruch Hu is kind, he's forgiving, he loves us. He knows, he knows that it's not our fault. We've got a יצר הרע yetzer hara. כאשר ראה את אבלם, עתה יזכירם בשמם החביב. וזהו גם כן המעיד להורות תשובה לרבים, שמלמדים מפרשה זו, התשובה ראויה לבא בשברון לב, הכרת החטא עמוקה, והדרך לזה הוא על ידי כוח תורה, כמו בפסוק ויתן אל משה ka'asher ra'ah es avlam, ata yazkirem b'sh'mam ha'chaviv. V'zeh hu gam kein ha'me'id l'horos teshuva l'rabim, she'm'lamdim mi'parsha zu, ha'teshuva re'uya l'va b'shivron lev, hakaras ha'chet amuka, v'ha'derech l'zeh hu al yedei koach Torah, k'mo b'pasuk vayiten el Moshe. So what did חז''ל Chazal mean in the גמרא Gemara in עבודה זרה Avodah Zarah when they said that this whole סוגיא sugya, this whole פרשה parsha, כי תשא Ki Sisa, the story of the חטא העגל chet ha'egel is to teach us about תשובה teshuva? What they meant is not to say, go do whatever you want, enjoy the pleasures of this world because you're not responsible because everybody's got a יצר הרע yetzer hara. We are responsible and we're capable of great things and we should have discipline and we have to be in control. But know, not if you'll make a mistake, when you'll make a mistake. It's the, what it means to be alive, it's the nature of a human being. We make mistakes. And know that when you make that mistake, everything about the mistake is how you react to it. It's how we respond to it. And by the way, this is not just true in our relationship with the ריבונו של עולם Ribbono Shel Olam, it's not just true in our religious identity. It's true in our relationships in life. Husbands and wives, they fight, they make mistakes. They violate what the other one wanted. And the question is when they do, do they say, okay, you're right, I'm sorry, whatever, move on. And the other person says, don't you realize how much you hurt? Don't you feel bad? Don't you feel guilty? Don't you feel ashamed? To the degree which you say, I'm really, really sorry. Looking back, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have said, gone there. I shouldn't have done that. When the person sees your remorse, your regret, your guilt, your shame, they're much, much more eager to forgive you and to move on. Because within the guilt, within the shame, is the effort to reconnect, to repair. It's true in our relationship with our spouses, it's true in our relationship with Hashem. We make mistakes, we're human. To make mistakes is human. The question is after the mistake. Do we celebrate it? Are we proud of it? Are we nostalgic for it? Or do we recognize we're better, we're capable of more, and we commit to learn from it, to never do it again. And everything about whether it will atone or not, is, is within the mistake. So within the mistake is the answer of how to come back from it. Within it, and the guilt and the shame from it, is the answer of how to repair.
