Thursday, May 24, 2012
Remaining Strong in our Faith
9:21 AM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
By Rav Moshe Sternbuch
Growing
in Torah
“If you walk in My statutes” (26:3) Rashi: “You shall toil in Torah."
Angels are
static, but we are supposed to be constantly on the move. Each day something
new should inspire us to reach ever higher levels of avodas Hashem. Only those who toil in the study of Torah can
truly experience this. Its beauty and unfathomable depth enable our souls to
grow correspondingly.
It is
shuddering to think that this requirement of constant growth is one of the
conditions for the fulfillment of the various rewards enumerated subsequently in
the pessukim and therefore its absence can result in the fulfillment of the curses chas vesholom. It is incumbent upon us
to endeavor to strengthen our dedication to Torah and thus increase kedusha in our lives on a daily basis.
HINTS of
ETERNAL REWARD
“And I will give your rains in their time”
(26:4)
The Rishonim ask why the Torah
does not explicitly mention the spiritual rewards and punishments of the World
to Come. (See the Kli Yokor on 26:12 who summarizes seven
different answers suggested by the Rishonim.)
If the Torah
would have specified the severe long-term spiritual ramifications of not
keeping the Torah properly, this would have increased the claim against those
who nevertheless fail to take note of the severity of sinning to such an extent
as to endanger the very existence of the nation. For this reason, Hashem, in His mercy, wanted to conceal the main reward and punishment awaiting us. Moreover,
this way, the reward of those who keep His
Word even without knowing the full extent of the reward awaiting them will be
incalculably greater than any reward that would have been their due had they
known all the details of the rewards and punishments in the afterlife.
For the same reason Tisha
Be’av is called a moed after chatzos, because that was when
the Beis Hamikdosh was destroyed completely, and the punishment of
sinners became less intense because there was no longer the same source of
inspiration which was afforded to the nation by the Beis Hamikdosh.
However, we can
understand this issue through another approach. The Vilna Gaon zt”l was once sitting and learning when
a wagon driver knocked on the door begging for food and complaining of the
difficulties of making a living. After the unfortunate man had been fed by his
host, he sighed: “Life is treating me very harshly in this world, but at least
in the World to Come, I will have it good”. The Vilna Gaon did not agree and responded
that if life is so difficult in this world, all the more so do we have to work
hard to attain eternal life through the merit of toiling in Torah and mitzvos.
In a similar incident it
is related that a Jew once came to the house of Rav Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov zt”l
at night, cold and hungry. Looking around the house he noticed that
it was warm and beautiful. If you are receiving your reward in this world, asked
the guest, what will be left for you in the World to Come? The Maggid of
Zlotchov replied: "I work day and night to merit eternal life, because
there is no reward for mitzvos in this world, since nothing here can
compare to the eternal world”.
The physical rewards promised by the Torah for
keeping the mitzvos cannot be anything more than a drop in the ocean,
mere “tips” or hints of the genuine eternal reward awaiting us in the afterlife.
DEFECTIVE
FAITH
“And if you treat Me as happenstance (keri), and you do not wish to
listen to Me” (26:21)
Many people believe in Hashem, but their faith is defective, because
they do not truly believe that there is none other than Him, and that only He
runs the world with divine individual providence with regard to each and every
act. We are surrounded by alien non-Jewish or anti-Torah attitudes which attribute
events to nature, politics, or pure chance. It takes a constant reinforcement
of our faith for us to realize that Hashem is the Boss, and that even though
His ways may be concealed, nothing takes place without His will.
In the tochocho the word keri
is mentioned no less than seven times in close proximity, four times as a
description of our behavior, and three times as a corresponding punishment by
Hashem. Clearly this issue of attributing events to happenstance is something
we should be working on.
SIMPLE
FAITH
“And they will then confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their
fathers, in their treachery which they committed against Me”
(26:40)
We would have thought that a
confession of one's own iniquity and the iniquity of one’s fathers is a worthy
thing. Why does it appear in the middle of a list of sins?
Some baalei teshuva, or potential
ones, are under the mistaken impression that they cannot rid themselves of the
shackles of their background. They reason that since their parents are not
believing or observant Jews, they cannot be better than them. This is totally
incorrect. Avrohom Ovinu’s father served idols, but this did not prevent
him from recognizing Hashem using his own intellect. We too do not need to be
scientists to grasp that if the sun was just a tiny bit closer to the Earth, we
would all be scorched to death, and if it was a tiny bit further removed from
us, we would will all freeze to death, and countless other such examples
pointing towards a Creator.
A person cannot become a complete baal
teshuva until he takes
responsibility for his own actions. The possuk here calls a person
to account for blaming his own way of life and outlook on the iniquities of his
father.
HISTORICAL
CYCLES
“I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them,
thereby breaking My covenant with them, for I am Hashem their G-d”
(26:44)
The Meshech Chochmo on this possuk
argues that Jewish history in golus consists of recurring cycles in
which periods of destruction that come in the wake of spiritual low points are,
in turn, followed by new renaissances. For example, the terrible persecutions
of Tach Ve-tat (the Chmelnitzki Massacres of 1648-1649), were eventually
followed by the works of such luminaries as Rabi Akiva Eger, the Chasam Sofer
and the Nesivos.
Although published
posthumously in the inter-war period, Rav Meir Simcha zt”l (1843-1926) wrote the Meshech Chochmo during his youth.
He not only famously predicted the destruction that would be wrought when people
think that Berlin is Yerushalayim, but also the explosion of Torah that would take
place in the decades following the Holocaust since “such has been the path
followed by the Jewish nation from the time it started its wanderings [the
destruction of the Beis Hamikdosh]”: periods of destruction followed by periods
of renewal.
The lesson to be derived for us in Eretz Yisroel is to be forever on our guard not to fawn to our erring brethren or to learn
from their ways. Such conduct on our part will only cause us to be despised by
them, and can lead chas vesholom to
the need for Hashem to show us that “I am
Hashem their G-d”. By this stage
of our history we should already know better than to have to wait for signs of divine
wrath before remaining strong and preserving our undiluted Torah heritage.
MOGEN
AVROHOM
“Then will I remember My covenant with Yaakov, and also My covenant with
Yitzchok, and also My covenant with Avrohom will I remember”
(26:44)
Why is the merit of Yaakov mentioned
last? If the merit of Yaakov, the elite amongst our forefathers, is not
sufficient to help the nation, how can the merit of the other two ovos help?
This teaches us that if in
the final generation we do not emulate the trait which characterized Yaakov,
namely the study of Torah, and are not worthy of being redeemed in his merit, nor
do we possess the trait which characterized Yitzchok, total self-sacrifice and
dedication, we can at least be saved in the merit of Avrohom, by emulating his middo of chesed, both in physical matters, and- as we saw last week
- in spiritual matters.
This is the reason why we conclude the
first blessing of the shmone esrei with mogen Avrohom: Hashem in
his mercy is willing to protect us, even if we only possess this trait of Avrohom, chesed, and in the period
leading up to the redemption our main prayers and merits revolve around chesed.
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