Transcript
Okay welcome back to Living with Emunah. It should be a good morning and a good day for Klal Yisrael. We should hear בשורות טובות ישועות ונחמות, sweeping victory, safety and security, and only, only good things. Last week I had to travel for a wedding and we missed this shiur and I must tell you as much as I missed giving it and listening to it and needing it, the emunah, I also little piece of me was not sorry to miss it because it's very difficult to sit and talk about emunah and bitachon in times like this and pain like this and loss like this with tragedy like this. But moreover feeling incredibly inadequate to do so sitting here in Boca Raton, Florida when there are millions of brothers and sisters who are all on the front line simply by living in Israel, whose lives have been upended and suspended, whose schools are not happening and contract work is stopped and chicken there's a shortage in the makolet and garbage is not picked up, whose husbands or fathers or sons are now away for over a week preparing and getting ready for the mission of their lives. And that's, that's a country of teachers of emunah. And the half a million or more soldiers who are singing and dancing to מי שמאמין לא מפחד, who are wearing tzitzis some for the first time in their life or putting on tefillin or talking to or about Hashem. That's the, these videos and these messages and these images, that's the emunah shiur. Boca Raton, Florida is not where it's at and I feel grossly, grossly inadequate to talk about emunah from this position and perspective but alas what can we do? The shiur is scheduled and have to give it but I wanted to really express that disclaimer. It's more than a disclaimer. I want to express that genuine enormous heartfelt feeling of inadequacy to talk about emunah which is as complicated as it is, is relatively simple from here certainly, certainly compared to those our brothers and sisters in Israel, those who have family members serving in the IDF, those in the IDF. So where do we all get emunah in moments like this? Where do you see Hashem's hand when 1400, 1400? For the rest of my life I'll never forget coming to shul Shemini Atzeret morning and being stopped by those who knew the news and feeling overwhelmingly responsible to share it with a community that were going to find out and needed to pivot in how we experienced Yom Tov and Simchat Torah. And I'll never forget that the first minyan I spoke at that morning, the number that we had at the time was there were 50 casualties. There was an infiltration and 50... I couldn't even say the words and I broke down crying thinking about 50 innocent people who were murdered. And now that number's 1400. It's a staggering number. It's a statistic, it's mind-boggling, it's difficult to even comprehend. To comprehend 1400. Over 200 children, babies, infants, women, elderly, Holocaust survivors who are being held captive and we don't know their condition and how they're being treated and if they're alive and the torture their families are going through every single moment that they're gone and soldiers on a front line and embassies that are on fire and university campuses and I don't have to spend this time filling you in, that's not why you're here. You all know how dire the circumstance is and how inconsolable we are to this loss. Where's Hashem? How do you talk about emunah? Where do you find His hand? Why would He allow, why would He do, why would He sit by, why would... So that's what I think about non-stop, I know that's what you think about non-stop and that's what I am grossly, grossly inadequate and unqualified to sit here and talk about and tell you anything. So I'm going to share the words of somebody who was qualified on the eve of his yahrtzeit who is tonight but first let's thank always hakarat hatov to our sponsors. The Emunah Series is sponsored by Dr. Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut in memory of Bella's mother Ellen Shanzer. We remain very grateful to the Morgans for their generosity. They are in Israel, live in Israel. I don't know if they've ever been to Boca. And we always have hakarat hatov to them for their generous sponsorship of this shiur that they don't attend in person and that they're not part of technically a member of the community, but... As they live in Israel and work in Israel and serve in Israel, certainly they are in our thoughts and tefillos. This morning's shiur is also sponsored l'kovod Rosh Chodesh in memory of Dr. Jacob Hiller who exemplified and modeled how to live with simchas hachayim, for Marni רחל בת מאירה אלטא to find her bashert, and she's growth oriented, strengthening her emuna and bitachon daily, constantly a source of chizuk for the person who's sponsoring, so im yirtzeh Hashem that should all help her find her bashert. And lastly, by Al and Sarah Gordon, who are sponsoring in memory of Al's aunt Gittel bas Dovid on her yahrzeit. And of course all of our learning is in the merit of strength and a refuah shleima and comfort and success for the IDF and for our brothers and sisters in Israel and all that they do. At the end of the emuna shiur, those who can stay for a few minutes will divide up Tehillim, the more you stay the shorter it takes, you divide up Tehillim, we'll complete the entire Sefer Tehillim to combine Torah and Tefilla, to combine learning and davenning, and hopefully have an impact. So I'm unqualified and I'm inadequate to talk about emuna in a circumstance like this, but tonight, the fourth of Cheshvan is the yahrzeit of the holy Piaseczno Rebbe, רב קלונימוס קלמן שפירא of Piaseczno. Piaseczno Rebbe, the Eish Kodesh, we knew and we learned, but Rav Weinberger, Mori v'Rabbi, certainly when he named his shul Eish Kodesh, certainly enhanced and elevated the learning and the exposure to the holy Piaseczner, who is now, whose words soothe our soul and inspire and light us on fire. So very briefly and quickly, if you've never heard of or you're not familiar with, the Piaseczno Rebbe was Kalonymus Kalman Shapira. Piaseczno was a city right outside Warsaw, and he was the Rav of Piaseczno. He attracted many chasidim to this small shtetl outside of Warsaw. He created an entire network of yeshivas where he was very progressive in his thinking and revolutionary in some ways. He established the Yeshiva Daas Moshe in 1923 and became one of the largest Chassidishe yeshivas in Warsaw, outside of Warsaw, between World War I and World War II. Very, very holy soul, a very deep soul, a very elevated soul, someone who composed music and played music, somebody whose soul sang out music. And he understood young people. He wrote sefarim long before the Holocaust, before the war. And if you learn Chovas HaTalmidim, Hachsharas HaAvreichim, Tzav v'Ziruz, his intellectual diary, you're exposed to a person who you feel is speaking right to you. A person who's not speaking to your head or your heart, but a person who's speaking right to your soul. He writes in the introduction of Chovas HaTalmidim how the young people were maturing, or they felt more mature than their years. He's writing in the 1920s. No internet, no Google, no access to endless information, and young people, chasidishe, insulated community of Warsaw, outside Warsaw, but he was struggling with the young chasidim who felt entitled to opinions and conclusions and more mature even much younger than they really were, and how do you deal with and how do you address that? He was really prescient, he was really ahead of his time. And he thought that would be the biggest challenge of his generation, little did he know and little could he see what was coming for him, for Polish Jewry, and for the Jewry of Eastern Europe. His only son, his daughter-in-law, and his sister-in-law were killed by the Nazis in the bombing of Warsaw in September 1939. And after Poland was invaded by the Nazis, yimach shemam, he was rounded up together with his community in the Warsaw Ghetto. And in the Warsaw Ghetto, he ran a secret shul. And in that shul, unimaginably, unimaginably, if you think giving an emuna shiur right now is hard, in that shul, secret shul in the Warsaw Ghetto, he gave drashos, he gave sermons. And he scribbled notes of those sermons, and he buried them underneath the ground of the Warsaw Ghetto, hoping that he would survive and one day collect them and publish them, and if not, they would survive him, and those themes and those ideas and those messages would be ones that would be recorded in posterity and for history. They were part of the Oneg Shabbos archives. Anyone familiar knows that there were heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto who were determined to record what was happening to them. They felt history needed to mark whether they would survive or not. Three enormous canisters, collections of those notes and those records that included of the holy Piaseczner his Eish Kodesh, the name of the work, which wasn't named that at the time, the Eish Kodesh, holy fire, the sermons that were given in the Warsaw Ghetto. Two of the canisters were discovered by Polish workers doing construction near the Warsaw Ghetto where it was, the third has not yet been discovered, so who knows what other writings or records are in it. And only because of that do we have these writings, these sermons. of the Holy Piaseczner. He was later transported after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, after it was crushed in 1943, he and other survivors of the uprising were taken to the Trawniki labor camp, which was near Lublin. And he was offered an opportunity to escape from the concentration camp, but he refused. He felt he needed to be with the people, inspiring the people, giving chizuk to the people, and he refused, and ultimately there he was murdered. He was exterminated. And after the uprising in Treblinka and Sobibor, there was increased concern by the Nazis, and the Operation Harvest Festival, if you recall, was launched, and in November 1943, on Daled Cheshvan, the Piaseczner Rebbe, רב קלונימוס קלמן שפירא, was murdered. His story is amazing. He was an amazing person. I gave once in People of the Book, we studied about his life and some of his works. After his son was murdered, he no longer could play music again. He couldn't, his soul couldn't bring itself. He was an amazing, amazing person. So we have, we have his holy Eish Kodesh, we have his holy sermons, Eish Kodesh, and we're going to learn his words together. Because while I'm inadequate, he's the most qualified, in the Warsaw Ghetto telling a group of Jews who were near skeletons, who were shadows of themselves, who had lost family, who were losing loved ones every single day, who were fighting to survive, who were living, increasingly losing hope. And he had to every Shabbos, or whatever frequency, turn to them and try to get a message across that would be truthful and accurate and honest and validate and somehow would touch their soul in a world that felt godless and where was He and abandoned by Him, but how could he try to increase that sense of, that sense of emunah? That sense of emunah. So we're going to look at his holy words tonight and tomorrow are his Yahrtzeit, so on the eve of his Yahrtzeit, tap into his holy words, his holy words together. And then we'll share, if I forget bring me back, some emails I've gotten, not only from those who live in Israel who connect to this shiur, who share their emails, but a few soldiers on my way in, I got a picture of a soldier who was standing on the edge of a hill and he was holding up a cup that says ahava. He says it's not an emunah coffee cup, but he had a cup that said ahava, and he said thank you, take this into the emunah shiur with you. Beautiful picture of a soldier who's listening and learning and who is demonstrating for us what we are learning about more than just in theory, but in theory he and they are demonstrating in unbelievable, unbelievable practice. So this is a drasha, what we're learning is something that the Piaseczner Rebbe said, he delivered this in 1941. This is a book called Torah from the Years of Wrath, the historical context of the Eish Kodesh. My friend Professor Henry Abramson did a remarkable job and made a great contribution by taking the Eish Kodesh and taking each of the sermons that the Piaseczner gave and telling us what was going on when it was given. If you just take the sefer and you learn it, and it does appear in translation, I think it's in English, then you don't necessarily know what the context was, what was going on when the Piaseczner said those words. So he has from the years of wrath 1939 to 1943, the historical context, and he tells us about this sermon that we're about to learn. That only two sermons, June 14th and July 5th, 1941, are recorded in the three months following Pesach 5701. The ghetto was rocked by major developments. The typhus epidemic raged on, reached its peak over 150 deaths daily. Corpses of indigents were left abandoned in the street, collected and stacked by the wagonload for the mass burial. A major contributing factor for the sharp increase in mortality was the secret Nazi preparations to invade the Soviet Union, which affected provisioning to the whole of Warsaw. Ironically, the Germans themselves recognized the dire needs of the ghetto and for a brief period before the summer and autumn of 1941, additional rations were supplied to the Judenrat for distribution. This policy, initiated by the local district head, was abruptly curtailed in September, indicative of the chaotic nature of the Nazi bureaucracy. He goes on and on and gives it a lot of context, but the immediate introduction to what we're going to learn because I want to get to it. He said in the borderland regions, decades of anti-Bolshevik propaganda demonized the militantly atheistic Soviet Union as the Jewish plot to dominate Christian Europe. In the brief period between Soviet-Nazi regimes, locals frequently vented their anger upon innocent Jewish populations that were completely unconnected to the Soviet atrocities. You know, before Shemini Atzeret, we thought words like pogroms and beheadings and rape, we thought that those were words of our history, of our past. that we would just get together on *Yom HaShoah*, we'd get together at *Tisha B'Av*, we'd say never again, we'd have a slogan, but the world, a pogrom, and then we woke up to 22 pogroms, 22 pogroms, some that lasted for days, of which we're just scratching the surface of the heinous and barbaric atrocities that the never again is happened again, and the world is quickly pivoting and shifting away from its sympathy and support, and all the more reason that we need to turn to *Avinu Shebashamayim*, אין לנו על מי להישען, there is no one to lean on or turn to or trust, *Al Tiftechu Binedivim*, it's an incredible statement of the president that shouldn't be lost on all of us, we should be, whatever our politics, unbelievably grateful to get on a plane and go to a war zone to show support and intervene and send billions of dollars and military aid, but with it, *Al Tiftechu Binedivim*, because with it ultimately we don't trust elected officials and princes and dignitaries, *Ella Avinu Shebashamayim*, it's *Hashem*, it's all *Hashem*, it's all *Hashem*, barrage of rockets that were headed for Haifa, not one of them successfully launched or reached and instead while we mourn, of course we mourn the tragic loss of civilian lives, but that failed to make it across a border, as apparently is being reported now, hundreds of rockets yesterday failed to get across and out of Gaza, אין לנו על מי להישען, there's no one to lean on other than *Avinu Shebashamayim*, in the southern center of Lvov, regarded by many as Poland's second city, angry locals attacked Jews in the streets in quasi-spontaneous pogrom that lasted four days and took the lives of 4000 Jews. It's also gives you a, it doesn't minimize what we've just experienced and the grief and the loss and the pain we feel, but it, it helps us realize how unfathomable everything that happened a week and a half ago in Israel was one run of one gas chamber in a few minutes at Auschwitz of one day 1400. It makes the six million number just, just beyond comprehension, or this pogrom that took 4000 lives in four days that's a footnote, it's, it's a footnote, pogroms because Jews were blamed by local Polish, angry local Poles, 4000, it's a footnote to 4000, 4000, the magnitude of the Holocaust 4000 is a footnote. Reports of the violence shocked the ghetto till Operation Barbarossa, the experience of Jews in Warsaw was one of incrementally increasing pressure, arguments over the borders of the ghetto until it was sealed and so on. The typhus, the increasing tight rate of typhus, punctuated by the occasional act of senseless violence. The pogroms of Lvov however were of a different order of magnitude, perpetrated by locals on a wide scale. Polish were not innocent bystanders. Photographs from the period show Jewish women forced to clean the streets with their undergarments before a crowd of hooting onlookers, Jews with bloodied faces running from boys armed with sticks resulting in thousands of murders in a short space of time. Warsaw Jews were not inured to such horrors and the following *Shabbos*, the *Rebbe* got up and addressed their concerns. So what we're about to learn, what we're about to see, is how the *Rebbe* got up and what he said, the *Piaseczner*, when those in the Warsaw Ghetto learned that 4000 of their brothers and sisters were brutally murdered and raped and forced to clean streets naked and in undergarments and the *Rebbe* had to get up to a group of skeletons and say something, what would he say? And this is what he said. I gave you the whole piece, it's long, *Parshas Chukas*, *Chukas* is *Parah Adumah*, *Chukas* is *chok*. What's a *chok*? That which is incomprehensible, that which we cannot understand, that which is beyond our capacity for understanding, a *chok* are the type of *mitzvos*, the category of *mitzvos* that we have to simply surrender, we have to simply submit, we have to simply say *Hashem*, this is your world, you're in charge, you're in control, when you tell me to jump I say how high, I can't understand, I don't feel entitled to understand, I don't feel capable of understanding, this is your world. And he goes through that in the whole first half of this sermon, this *drasha*, this essay, and I encourage you to look at it. But I want to go to the paragraph, I don't have the copy, it begins לכן בשעת צרה ליעקב, *Beshas Tzara L'Yaakov*. So you have it in the English, again I thank Dr. Abramson for his translation, those who want to follow the English or those who want to learn it in the Hebrew, it's on the second page. *Beshas Tzara L'Yaakov*, you know we've been using that expression, Monday night we had over a thousand people here community wide, *Eis Tzara L'Yaakov*, not *Eis Tzara L'Yisrael*, *Eis Tzara L'Yaakov*, *Yaakov* is *Klal Yisrael* when we're not in a state of *Geulah* and *Yeshuah*, when we're not living our best selves, when we are not on top of our world, we're *Yaakov*. Yaakov, Yisrael is the realization. Yisrael is our destiny. Yaakov is when we walk with a limp. It's an eis tzara le'Yaakov. It's an eis tzara le'Yaakov. הגם שעל ידי זה העוונות מתכפרים מכל מקום דאקא מה שאיש מתרגל יותר להרגיש על עצמו. So what happens? When Yaakov is suffering, when there's suffering, when there's tragedy, when there's challenge around us, while it's true that this provides atonement for a person's sins, Hakadosh Baruch Hu has His calculations, His calculus, His ways, and the suffering in this world somehow atones, repairs for the mistakes, the sins, we don't dare, we don't dare suggest how that works or what those sins are, we are not God, we don't compete with Him. Anyone who tells you this is why, or this is the explanation, or this is the punishment, or this is the reason, distance yourself as far as you can go in the world from them. We each can ask how can we learn, how can we grow, how can we improve, what we can take on from this, however we dare, dare not suggest an association or direct link of why. But this is the Rebbe speaking to a group in the Warsaw Ghetto, fighting to survive and for their lives, the day after 4,000 were wiped out in a local pogrom. And he says eis tzara le'Yaakov, when there's tragedy and calamity and atrocity, when there's significant Jewish loss and crisis, of course it's somehow a kaparas avonos. But the nature of a person is to be ever more aware of themselves, to be focused on themselves lehargish es atzmo, me, how do I feel, how am I dealing, what am I doing? That phenomenon exists even those outside of Israel, their own mental health, how it's impacting them, how they feel, how this is how the news is affecting them. But those who are the heart of the of the crisis, כי בכל היום שקוע בעצמו זה כואב לו וזה חסר לו. Because all day long a person is immersed in their own suffering. They feel this is painful, this is missing. It's all they think about, it's all they're concentrating on. Their child who's in Israel, who's studying, who's living, who's serving, their nephews, their family, Klal Yisrael as a whole. כי אם אפשר שיכה לאיש ולא ירגיש כאב גופו? Because is it possible for a person to be hit, to be struck, and not to experience physical pain? Spoke about in Seder Snippets last night. If you're hit and you don't yell ouch, then you're not in pain. And the parsha class yesterday. Noach is held accountable, mei Noach, the whole flood is attributable to Noach, why? Because he didn't daven. Ah, but he already knew there weren't enough righteous in his generation, he already knew that he couldn't inspire his generation, he already knew they were irredeemable, so why bother davening? How could we hold him accountable if the davening wouldn't have made a difference? Says the Brisker Rav, you know why? Because when you stub your toe, when you get a shot at the doctor, when you scream ouch, did it help? Did it make the pain go away? Did it do anything? No. But you know, if you're in pain, you scream ouch. And if you didn't scream, then the nurse or the doctor or the person in the room with you has no reason to believe you're in pain. If you don't scream, there's no reason for anyone around you to think you're in pain. If you're in pain, you scream whether it hurts or whether it helps, sorry, or not. So Noach, they're called mei Noach the mabul because whether the davening would have helped or not, Noach should have screamed just to reflect the pain. You're wiping out an entire world, a flood that's wiping out and a hard reset and a reboot on the whole world. So says the Piaseczner, of course it's natural, of course it's understandable that a person who's in their own pain, you read the headline and you say ow, ow, this hurts. The distortion, the propaganda in the news telling lies about a hospital and who's responsible. Embassies on fire, rallies, 1,400 funerals, families grieving. An amazing person in our community who I love, who came up to me to ask, he's saying kaddish for the loss of his mother, and read about entire families that were wiped out and there's no one to say kaddish for them, for children, and asked if he could say kaddish to get their names. Of course we think how does this affect me, how does it impact me, how does it hurt me, what do I need to do for self-care? ועל ידי שבכל היום יש לו דאגה על חייו התלוים לו מנגד. And those who are the front lines, those who are the target of the threat of the enemies of our hatred, of course they are preoccupied with how do I survive? My safe room. My brother, my sister-in-law in Gush, in Alon Shvut, who until now were worried about rockets, so the safe room, you wanted to make sure that it was accessible from the outside, because if God forbid a rocket hit your house and people came to rescue you, they needed to be able to get into the safe room to get you out. But now that they're not as worried... But now that they're not as worried about rockets as they are about infiltrators, now the whole calculation is different. How do you lock the room from the inside to make sure that if people are shooting and beating and knocking down that door there's no way they can get in? And they sent me the advertisement because this is normal, right? A Jewish community needs to have an advertisement. Not a WhatsApp group about the local animal show for Parshas Noach, not a WhatsApp group if you want to buy challah or participate in a challah bake. But the WhatsApp group of: Do you want to have installed the special new lock inside your mamad, inside your safe room so that nobody could get in? Because which are you more afraid of? The rockets or the infiltration? You need to be more concerned about locking it from the outside or from the inside. Of course that's what a person thinks about. They're target, they're on the front lines. These aren't normal conversations. These aren't normal conversations, considerations. Let's have a family meeting. What are we more worried about? How should we take the initiative to best protect ourselves? ועל כאבו ויסורו הקשים נשקע שוב בהרגשת עצמו ודאגתו ועבודתו מצב נמוך שוב בשבילו and says the Rebbe, immersed in his pain and suffering he regresses to a lower form of divine service, which is predicated upon his awareness of his physical condition. What happens? God is knocked out of the equation. Cause all we're thinking about is: what do I need to do to survive? Those in Israel of course understandably, what initiative, what efforts, what precautions, what do we need to do to survive? Those outside of Israel, how do we emotionally practice self-care and resilience? What do we need to do in absorbing the news and showing our concern and rallying and advocating? And I was on the phone for hours yesterday. Qatar is a key here because they're harboring Hamas leaders and they could apply the pressure to let those who are being held hostage be released. What are the pressure points with Qatar who have a business deal with the Nets and who are playing the Heat tonight in the preseason... Everyone's consumed with where the angles, where the pressure points, what difference can we make, what rally can we attend? But writes the Piaseczno in the Warsaw Ghetto, you're looking for your next morsel of food, you're looking for your next little water, you're looking for the next place you could hide, you're looking for the next place you could survive. That's a very low level of Avodas Hashem. We regress to the lowest level of mindfulness and self-awareness and service of Hashem and of ruchanius of spirituality, of spirituality. So what do we do? Skip to the next paragraph. Skip the next paragraph. והנה כדי לעורר במרום רחמים על ישראל and there's the message I wanted to get across to you today. As someone who's grossly inadequate to talk about emunah right now, here's the message I wanted to get across, here's the Rebbe's message. You want to arouse divine mercy. That's what we all want and need. We all want some miracle so our boys don't need to go in on the ground, that hostages are freed and the Hamas is eliminated and purged or wiped out from this earth and that Gaza becomes a resort community, an extension of Israel, maybe the future home of BRS East along the ocean, along the sea. That's what we desperately want. That's what we want to arouse divine mercy and rachamim min Hashem. ולהמתיק את הדינים and we want Hashem to temper the harsh divine judgment. Harsh divine judgment, cause that's what we're feeling. That's what the Rebbe turning to this group in the secret synagogue in the Warsaw Ghetto says: I know what you're feeling because I feel it. Hashem is practicing din. Hashem is practicing... Where's the rachamim? Where's the compassionate father? He's practicing din, strict justice and strict judgment, and it hurts. It hurts when a parent is punishing, when a parent feels callous and cruel and removed and distant. It hurts. Where's that loving parent? Where are they? We want to turn them and pivot them from the parent who's enraged and practicing strict din from that loving, loving parent who's overflowing with rachamim with compassion. How? Listen to what the Rebbe says. צריכים לעורר בקרבנו רחמנות על ישראל זולתו you want Hashem to turn to overflowing and overwhelming and endless love and compassion, then we need to practice endless love and compassion and kindness. לא לבד שצריכים ליתן כל מה שיכול ליתן להם not just that you're willing to give and provide everything you're capable of giving and sharing. Again, where morsels of bread and where drops of water made the difference of life and the death, the Piaseczno Rebbe is turning to the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and saying share what you have. Don't just be focused on your survival. You want Hashem to show rachamim, you show rachamim. You want Hashem to show mercy, you have mercy. Arouse that, awaken that within you. רק הרחמנות בעצמה שמעוררים בקרבנו על ישראל פועלת במרום the very mercy we arouse within ourselves has an effect on the heavenly realm. צריכים שלא יתאכזר בצרות ישראל כלומר ריבוי הצרות לא יטשטש בקרבנו ולא יעכב את הרחמנות על ישראל Don't become accustomed to Jewish suffering, don't become numb to the overwhelming degree of suffering, such that our mercy of Jews is deadened. Their skeletons in the streets, they're piling up in wagons, they're waiting to be buried, people are dropping dead all around you, said the Rebbe, do not become adjusted, do not become accustomed, do not ever allow that to become a new normal. Don't allow headlines and images and storylines, don't allow videos to ever become a new normal. Don't watch them casually and callously and forward them and pass them on. Don't ever let that be a new normal. Every image, every newsflash, every update about the loss of a Yiddishe life, about a child, about those who are running to shelters, stop, shake, shudder, daven, feel, feel, feel rachmanus, feel sympathy, feel empathy, feel your own pain because we're all extensions of one another. Addaraba, said the Rebbe, צריך הלב כמעט להיות נמוג חס ושלום מצרות מרות כאלו. On the contrary, the heart should melt at the bitterness of this suffering. We should be sick, sickened over what's happening, inconsolable. I wrote about it this week, but if someone says to me, you know, Rabbi, I need a good distraction, Baruch Hashem for this X, fill in the blank, we all need a distraction from what's going on. Need a distraction? Your child's in the ICU, you want to be distracted from that? You can't be distracted from that. Nothing and no one in the world could distract you from that. And that doesn't mean that you should watch the news 24/6, we have to pace ourselves, shut it off, whatever you need to know, you need to know that's very damaging and dangerous and unhealthy. I'm not a proponent of it, don't be glued to the news nonstop. And you can't walk around, one of the letter writers, we'll see if we have time to get to these letters, one of the people who wrote to me said, you know, I feel, how could I do laundry, how could I wash the dishes, how could I make dinner with what's going on? We have to live life, we have to live life, you can't say Tehillim all day, lose your job, lose your income, have nothing to eat. But within that, not want to and not be capable of being distracted. It's constantly in the background with whatever we're doing in that moment, laundry or shopping or dinner or going to work or having a conversation that's not about the matzav in Israel. But still, it's playing in the background. It's the noise in the background the entire time. Just like if a close family member, chalila chas v'shalom, one spouse or parent or child were in crisis. Could anyone or anything distract you from that? Would you want to be distracted? Could you be capable? Said the Rebbe, you know how you arouse divine mercy and compassion and love? By practicing compassion and mercy and endless love. By being acutely connected with the pain of others. וכשמעוררים הרחמנות בקרבנו ישראל פועל בזה שתפילתנו בעד ישראל תהיה יותר בלב ונפש. Arousing mercy within us will affect two things: firstly, our tfillos, our prayers on behalf of the Jewish people become more heartfelt, more heartfelt. אחד שתפילתנו בעד ישראל תהיה יותר בלב ונפש. When you're living, when you're feeling, when imo anochi b'tzara, when I'm picturing running to a shelter, locking the door, having to make the decision from the outside or the inside, having a loved one who you have no idea their fate or where they are or what's going on with them or when or how you'll get them back and in what state. Your davening won't be the same, it can't be the same, it can't be. I spoke about in Chassidus snippets last night, if your Shmoneh Esrei is the same length today as it was before Shmini Atzeres, you gotta find out if you really are a Jew, if you have Jewish ancestry, you gotta test your DNA, you gotta really look in the mirror and ask yourself what kind of connection you have to Hashem and to his people, to the Jewish people. If your davening is not a little bit longer, a second, five seconds, thirty seconds, if you're not inserting in Shma Koleinu and Refaeinu, if you're not putting into Tekah B'shofar, if you're not putting in ולירושלים את צמח דוד, bring a miracle and redemption, if you're not saying to Hashem, protect our soldiers, bring the captive home, give strength, a sentence in your own words. That's what Shmoneh Esrei is, a template. The real most important part of Shmoneh Esrei is not what's written in the Siddur, it's what's written in your heart. Speak, talk to him, unburden yourself, yell at him, he can handle it, he's waiting for you to do it. He wants you, he wants to see that the mercy in you has been aroused. Said the Rebbe, again, it's mind-boggling to picture he's in the Warsaw Ghetto, and there's been a pogrom in Warsaw, taken four thousand lives, young girls, tzniyus, beautiful bnos Torah, bnos Yisrael are being paraded naked in the streets, and the Rebbe says, you want Hashem to wake up and intervene? You know how Hashem will do that? When we wake up and when we love and when we care and when we do everything that we can. V'habeit. Listen to what he said. As is known from Kabbalistic literature, there are times when a decree of salvation for the Jews has already been issued in heaven, but its implementation is delayed due to its otherworldliness and its inability to descend to this world and assume physical garb. So when it is not merely an intellectual awareness alone that Jews have an obligation to support one another, but rather one manifests mercy with one's entire being, then one's prayers are beneficial in drawing down the salvation into this world and the realm of the physical, since one is transformed into a vessel of mercy both in one's heart and with one's character. Hear what he says to the Jews of Warsaw, the Warsaw Ghetto. Sometimes Hashem has a yeshuah and nechamah, Hashem has salvation. He's got a plan, he's got a solution, but it's not yet able to be brought down to this world. There's no vessel through it to express itself, for it to be captured, for it to be able to manifest. We become that vessel when we show that mercy, that love, that kindness, that concern, when we are inconsolable while we are interconnected, while we have that unity, then we become that vessel for that salvation to be able to come down. It's waiting for us, for you and me, for that act of kindness, for that text or that email or that call to someone in Israel, I'm thinking about you, I care about you, I'm checking in on you, tell me. Every day at this time we're going to sit and have a cup of coffee together on WhatsApp video. Every day to check in if you want, if it means something to you. Constantly to check in, to care, to love, to make you feel you're not invisible, that we didn't move on, that we didn't go back, that we're involved. To pass up on a luxury and take that money and make a difference in the soldier's life with the military equipment they need and with the love and with the gesture. To rally and to write letters and to protest and to davven, to do good and kindness locally for one another. And we're seeing that Klal Yisroel has come together in ways none of us ever, ever imagined or thought or dreamt. Klal Yisroel is on fire. Achdus, a unity the likes of which I've never seen in my life. The divisions and the walls have come crumbling down that kept Jews apart from one another, secular and religious and right-wing and left-wing and for judicial reform and against judicial reform. A Jew is a Jew all across the globe and in Israel. Non-kosher restaurants in Tel Aviv koshering so they can give kosher food to soldiers. People distributing and making tzitzis who never knew what they were or wore a pair in their lives. Achdus and love and connection. Belz saying the tefillah for Tzahal, which for some about time and it's obvious, but it's not so obvious in the different traditions. And the chesed and the achdus. Hashem, we're turning ourselves into that vessel, into that kli that the Piaseczner Rebbe told us we have to. We have to not only increase our davvening, its intensity, its frequency, its length, its mindfulness, but we have to demonstrate that achdus, that love, that compassion, that kindness, because we have to become that vessel that can hold Hashem. You have the plan. You have the solution. You have the way out. You have the revenge for those who need to be eliminated from this earth. You have it all ready to go. Sometimes a parent knows the solution for their children, but their children need to first get along. The children are all put in timeout because they're misbehaving and they can't get along. And the parent says the vacation's off, the trip is cancelled, the Chanukah gifts are not coming out of the closet. I'm not giving you what you want because you can't get along. And the parent is watching, they're holding the gifts, they're ready to give it. They've got the tickets for the vacation, for the trip, for how they want to spoil those children. They're holding on to it. They're in the other room, they're listening around the corner, just begging the children, just show a little love, a little compassion, just give each other a hug, just work this out, because the second you do, then I can shower you with all that I'm holding back, that I have, that I want to give you. I would never dare suggest this, this isn't my thought. This is the Piaseczner Rebbe in the Warsaw Ghetto, who ultimately would be murdered by the Nazis yemach shemom vezichrom, who already lost his only son and his daughter-in-law and his family. And he's telling these Jews who just witnessed the pogrom, this is what we need to do, this is how we demonstrate emunah, we lean into emunah and live with emunah. If we want Hashem to show his mercy, his love, his kindness, we need to become that vessel. He's listening, he's around the corner, he's watching. He says you're doing pretty good, you're doing pretty well, you've really come together, you've really connected, but there's more to do. There's more to do. Davven more intensely, davven more often, davven more selflessly thinking about others. Do more, show up more, be counted more, care more, give more, support more, support more. That's This is the WhatsApp message. It was accompanied by a four-minute voice note, and he says in it, "We're going in soon, and I don't know, none of us know what happens after, so I want to leave this voice note before we go in." Because that's normal for a 20-year-old to leave a voice note for some rabbi he never met. "I'm about to go into a war to defend the Jewish people, and I don't know if I'll come home, so I want to make sure I leave you this voice note." And he left a beautiful voice note, which I'm not playing for you or telling you, but this was the short text that accompanied it: "I'm a 20-year-old IDF soldier currently preparing towards entering Gaza. I greatly appreciate if you get a chance to listen to the voice message. I apologize for not sending an email, though due to the circumstances, I'm not in a state of mind to do so. Thank you for all that you've done for me personally and for your community and for the entire Jewish people," which is the most ridiculous thing for him to write me. But it's this sentence that I want to share with you. This is what he writes: "We now know in practice what we knew in theory, that we are stronger and more unified than we sometimes mistakenly believe. Am Yisrael Chai." That was his message and a four-minute incredible voice note. "We now know in practice what we knew in theory, that we are stronger and more unified than we sometimes mistakenly believe. Am Yisrael Chai." We have that strength, we have that resilience, we have that faith, we have that hope, we have that love, we have that unity. We have it. I'll tell you, there are things left and right that are, that are worthy of being bothered by. This one's reacting this way, this one posted that thing, this one insisted this, this one at the rally, they sang this, they left this out, at the community rally, they didn't have this, this was on the bimah, this wasn't on the bimah, this one participated, they didn't participate. I, like you, can tell you about a billion things that are upsetting, but none of them should upset you. I am working overtime in myself—I'm not always successful, but I'm sharing that I'm working hard—and even when people, and even when people very close to me who I love very much say, "Doesn't that bother you?" or "Don't you want to say something?" Nope. Nothing bothers me right now. We're just, only tell me about the things that we have in common. Only talk about the things that bring us together. And the organization, the yeshiva, the school, the WhatsApp group, the person who posted, whatever they're doing or doing differently than you would want, or different than you like, or different—move on. Who cares? It doesn't matter. All that matters right now are what we agree on, what we have in common, where we find common ground, how we can feel unified, how we can love each other, because what we knew in theory, that we are stronger and more unified than we sometimes mistakenly believe. All that differences and all those demonstrations, while the content of them and the disagreements of them are important, but the way that we were displaying it was narrishkeit, was silliness. Underneath it, the real us, the true us, was this united and unified single achdus, one Klal Yisrael. Chevre, don't let anything bother you right now. Don't let anything bother you with it. You want shalom, you want peace in Israel, let's start with shalom in our homes. Don't let anything your spouse does, your children do, your in-laws do, your parents do, just, just more than any other time in your life, don't let it bother you. It's hard. It's hard. We're all, we have less patience than we've ever had. We're on greater edge than we've ever been. We're in a more fragile state than we can remember being in. So it's hard. It's hard. So what? So what? You want shalom, you want peace in Israel, why should Hashem bring peace in Israel if we can't have peace in our homes, if we can't have peace with our neighbor, if we can't have peace with the person who sits next to us in shul, if we can't have peace with the person who sends their child to a different school, wears a different yarmulke, doesn't wear a yarmulke at all. If we can't make peace with everyone around us. We daven with our lips and we daven with our actions is what the Piaseczna Rebbe was saying. We daven with our lips and we daven with our actions. We daven with the words in the siddur and the Tehillim, but we daven with our actions. I want peace, Hashem, I'm showing you that I can become a vessel of peace. Look, even though people are frustrating and annoying and incorrigible, I'm not letting anything bother me. I'm looking the other way. I'm simply not going to allow it to escalate. I'm not. We have to demonstrate. We have to demonstrate. Next email, anonymous. Hi Rabbi. My husband and father of my three young kiddies. on the Gaza border but tomorrow they're doing drills to prep for one day before going into Gaza. I'm sick to my stomach I want to puke. I'm sitting in my car stuffing my face with soggy french fries trying to numb the fear but it's not working. I decided to go and see if you had put out an emuna shiur this past week on Spotify referencing our current events but to my dismay the last shiur was dated September. I know I need to have emuna right now and I believe with my whole heart that whatever happens is for my best. I know that Hashem loves me and is doing what's good for me but I'm scared and nauseous because what if Hashem decides that what's best for me what I need to be is a single mom for the rest of my life? In capital letters I will not function. I can't breathe at the thought and then I think why am I stressing out about something that may never happen? Because I'm being practical and a realist and asking my husband now for all the passwords to the banking apps. Does me being sick to my stomach mean I'm not actually having real emuna? I believe Hashem is running the whole show but what if I have to go through this for the tikkun or the bigger picture? I don't want to go through this. I'm scared stiff to that challenge. Help me come out on top of this. I want to drive and see him before he goes into Gaza. I haven't seen him since lunchtime last Shabbos. It's been more than a week but I'm scared to put myself in danger and desperate for my kids while there are scary sirens and rockets. I don't know how to think anymore. On a regular day we do our hishtadlus and stay safe by not walking into Ramallah. Today for me to drive an hour and a half to go and see him when they are advising people not to go out if necessary is that hishtadlus? I don't know what to do. This is the state of affairs. This is where we're at. This is how people feel. These are our Rebbeim and teachers of emuna because this woman I don't know who she is this anonymous writer even in asking those questions and struggling is demonstrating unbelievable emuna. These are our teachers these are our Rebbeim. She's having the conversation with herself she's giving herself the answers to the questions and she's got this. She's got this the resilience to persevere. But to be shaky and to be nauseous that's legitimate and real. Having emuna maybe we'll end with this for today there are more emails and more to talk about another week next week and please God by then this will be over but it likely won't so there'll be more to discuss. But it's important to end with this note. Living with emuna does not mean that you don't feel anxious or worried or afraid. That's not what it means. Yes we learn the חזון איש אמונה וביטחון that da'aga fear is a biblical prohibition and it reflects a pegam in emuna. But that's like irrational fear that's daily the silly fears that can creep in. What if we miss the flight? What if what if the challah doesn't come out good? The dough doesn't rise. What if even what if I don't get into that school? What if? Those are the fears the Chazon Ish says lean into your emuna and you will be able to eliminate those fears. But to live with anxiousness all of Sefer Tehillim is Dovid HaMelech telling Hashem I've got to face this struggle this confrontation it's concerning it's agitating it's aggravating it's anxiety building but I'm turning to You. In other words this is how I feel this is what's normal and rational to fear but I'm turning to You and I'm channeling it through You and I'm leaning in with You. So if you're feeling it don't feel bad or guilty or ashamed. Those are natural and normal feelings at this time but we're meant to channel and to lean in and to focus and to bring it and to bring it to our relationship with Hashem. So tonight tomorrow the holy the yahrtzeit of the holy Piaseczna Rebbe Hashem yikom damo נשמה שתהא צרורה בצרור החיים through our learning of his Torah through his touching our neshama through our inspiring his elevating our neshamas to have the courage the bravery the resilience to live with emuna in this incredible time to arouse the divine mercy and compassion by practicing our own mercy and compassion by continuing to be aware of and invested in and loving to all those who are struggling and suffering to not be capable of being distracted even while we have to pace ourselves and take breaks but in the background always remain connected to what's happening there and that ultimately Hashem yisbarach always has and always will bring a geulah and yeshua to Klal Yisrael and somehow bring this out of it it should happen speedily speedily it should happen today. Amen.
