My dear friends,
I will start this but it will not be finished with this post.
This post will just touch the surface of this great gift, this piece of Tomer Devorah called “Yoshuv Yerachameinu” which means “He will AGAIN be merciful to us”
The day that Rav Moshe Cordovero zatzal wrote this beautiful Torah in his Tomer Devorah, was the day Mr YH was pulling his hair out in frustration. Mr YH for hundreds of years wanted this piece of Tomar Devorah deleted ,or forgotten ,or not internalized, and that the GYE chevra ,(who now giving Mr YH a big severe migraine headache, and toothache, and especially an eyeache,) never knows about this Tomar Devorah ,or Mr YH will start having heart palpitations and will be blowing heavily in a brown paper bag, hyperventilating, red faced, trying to catch his breath in the midst of a great panick attack.
This Torah is not new. It’s been around since the Torah was given. But the Tomar Devorah explains it wonderfully here, in the first perek, explaining the middah of “Yoshuv Yerachameinu”
He starts off as follows. Hashem deals with us in a different manner than the way human beings deal with each other. Someone angers his friend and he is appeased, he will only be partially appeased. He will not love his friend the same way as before. However, if a man sinned against Hashem and did teshuva then “Ma’Aloso Yoser Gedolah Im Hakodosh Boruch Hu”-his level is exceedingly great with Hashem, that is what is meant that ”In a place that a Baal Teshuva stands even a Tzaddik Gommur cannot stand”
Let’s stop here for a second. We must remember that Chazal is the truth of truths. It’s not man-made feel- good liberal phoniness that is just trying to make a baal teshuva feel better about himself, the good-hearted liberal that pats you on the back and tells you “Oh, you poor screwed up, messed up poor thing, don’t feel so bad, to tshuva and everything’s cool with you” while in this liberal’s mind this very baal teshuva that he is talking so “kindly” to, is to him like a glob of mold on his bathroom wall. And the tragedy that strikes many Jewish homes is this small minded ignorant stupidity. The Chazal looks at a baal teshuva very differently…”Ma’Aloso Yoser Gedolah Im Hakodosh Boruch Hu”-he is raised to an extremely high level-for real. He has a greatness that the greatest tzaddik does not have-for real. Chazal often say harsh things when they are true. So if Chazal says this about a baal tshuva, it’s not being nice, it’s for real and they mean business.
He continues. This world is made with the letter “Hai”, which is open completely at the bottom. It has NO FLOOR. Hashem created this world open to the side of evil. sin is in abundance. and because our world which is the Hai has NO FLOOR, unless you are holding on to the leg for dear life it is very easy to fall into that floorless bottom.
Then he makes this profound and redeeming statement that on the surface sounds downright depressing, but in reality should give us a great surge of hope into our inherent goodness and would cast off a heavy burden that we should not have to bear.
“Ain Tzad She’Ain Chomer V’Yetzer Horah V’Pgam”-which means that “there is no side (to this world) that does not have physicality, evil inclination, and defects)”
You realize what this means? All this time you may have been thinking, true,the world has challenges, has its evil, but the main problem is ME, as a person, as a human being.
But we are told here, no ,the problem is “Olam Hazeh”. Built into this world, is the idea that you will be dealing with physicality, evil, and “P’gam”-defects.-serious ones, from all sides!!!
You were meant to have these challenges!! Yes, it’s true, you have to watch where you go,so no one is telling you to go to Las Vegas to gamble and to be exposed to very sick stuff,but if Hashem set up a situation for you to be there, your employer told you that you must go ,and you accidently come across filth ,it’s not you, that 1st image wasn’t you, it was this world with no floor ,and if you fight, fight, fight, and do your best to be clean and loyal to Hashem, then you have achieved a great and high level.
No one is telling you not to be responsible. But being irresponsible means that you should have been responsible and you were not. But that first devastating image that you saw was not your responsibility .It’s what you do right after that is when you begin to choose. .not before that.,
In a nutshell, what the Tomar Devorah is saying is that Hashem intentionally and purposefully placed us in this world, the HAI, that has NO FLOOR, a world with millions and billions and trillions of opportunities to sin and fall into terrible places and situations.
THIS INHERENT MATZAV IS NOT YOUR FAULT.
ZERO FAULT OF YOURS!!
To explain this point:
You must take that bus, you don’t have a car, and those idiots posted up a billboard of a filthy disgusting image. You didn’t ask to be there, you would have preferred to stay home, but you can’t because Hashem told you nothing doing, you have to go to work, you have to visit this sick person that is on this bus route, your mother sent you to go shopping for her because she is not feeling well.. and yes, you have to be near this sick demented image on that billboard,that image that literally “smashes” into your eyes. But now I am giving you this precious and wonderful OPPORTUNITY & GIFT of not looking a second time, this great mitzvah of “lo sossuru” ,a truly great mitzvah.
Which means to say that the first time, that first second that you saw that filthy image, it did not blemish your soul, it did not create a defect, it’s there to tell you, you saw this garbage, fine, now run away, don’t look at it again, and you become great because of that filthy billboard that you refuse to look at a second time, that filthy billboard that you refuse to acknowledge ever again, like a first class snob you ignore it completely ,it doesn’t exist, and you just got a great mitzvah.
A great mitzvah you have performed by not looking this second time, like succah, shofar ,mezuzah, matzah.
Its just that for matzah you needed the flour and water, for succah you needed the boards and nails and windows ,and for the mitzvah of “lo sosuru” you needed that 1st sick demented sick image on that bus billboard that came to you entirely unexpected, and your mitzvah is to run away from it like a plague or if you can’t then at least act like that first class snob-it’s beneath your dignity to place any importance on this low-class image.
Yosef HaTzadik has a great mitzvah the one that made him the tzaddik, the mitzvah that in his zchus all the men in Mitzrayim had a special shemira against immorality.
Who was the one who caused him to have this great wonderful mitzvah? This immoral “Leshaim Shomaim” wife of Potifar.
You expected Yosef to become great by learning in Yeshiva 20 hours a day, delving into the intricacies of a beautiful “k’tzos ha’choshen”. But no, he has to deal with this screw ball, this “leshaim shomaim” cruel yet beautiful woman who was ready to torture him into sleeping with her.
I wonder sometimes, when he ran out of his house, what was he thinking? True, he passed the test. but did it ever cross his mind to ask “WHY ME?”WHY DO I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS FILTH? ”Why couldn’t I sit in the Bais Midrash or in the holy house of my father all day long, but no, I need to be in the worse place of the world with the worst people with screwed up morals, and now I’m going to be thrown into a dungeon even after I passed this test. Something is rotton in the land of Mitzrayim. And guess who is here? me, Yosef who was barely saved from a terrible tragedy and shame .and he needed his fathers help too. He couldn’t fight this thing alone.
It is strange to have a great mitzvah that starts out with such filth. but think about it. In English it is “don’t stray after your eyes” which means that Hashem is telling you from the start, from the get go, that your eyes will be challenged and exposed to straying.
I didn’t make you a tzaddik gomur for a reason. I didn’t make you a tzaddik gomur for a reason. You are not the Chazon Ish. too bad. you want to cry about it then cry about it. Boo hoo, Boo hoo, I’m not the Chazon Ish, sniffle, sniffle sniffle, Boo hoo, I’m not Reb Moishe. TOO BAD!! Wake up and smell the coffee!! Accept the reality you are in. This is not Loshan Horah, this is life. You think Rabbeim and Rabonim don’t have such tests? Dream on!! Living in the land of Oz? with Rebbetzin Alice in Wonderland? (great book by the way, much much deeper than people think)
I’ll never forget this. My 8th grade Rebbi was also my head counselor in camp, this walking talking mussar sefer, admitting in front of hundreds and hundreds of campers, how fortunate are you to be protected from the outside environment for 2 whole months(except for the 2 visiting days that were tests in different ways),because I had to go into the city to 13th Avenue in Boro Park to several banks, and he told us how he was affected by the peritzus on the streets. I’m telling you the man is a tzaddik. but an honest tzaddik who told us the way it is with courage and great openness.
How many Rabonim would tell 13 year olds how he is affected by what he sees or may see on the streets?.
And I don’t think any less of him because of this admission. To the contrary, he was probably the greatest Rebbi I ever had.
I digressed but I will return to the Tomar Devorah exactly where we lest off.
Till then remember
“Ain Tzad She’Ain Chomer V’yetzer Horah V’Pgam”
And a Baal Teshuva is “Maaloso Yoser Gedolah im Hakodosh Boruch Hu.
Good Shabbos dear brothers and sisters, who light up the world and they don’t even know it.
