Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Life and Times of A Zealot

You see your tomorrow. Okay. Hi everybody. Thank thank you for coming and as always we pray for the protection of AmI Israel the unity of people of Israel which will mer lead to victory and for all those whose health has been affected by terror. Rafua for lea Israel sura and do benosana aliat shama. The Shir is dedicated in honor of Aigo Batayak Hanet Min Aet Shimon uh which is dedicated to her memory by her kids and her grandkids. Aruti Bolinski and Ruain Zizva and their families. May the Sher be Shama in memory of Ary Lev Benze Vulf and Kaya Simkin who was nifter in the summer of 1951. He received from the but was sent with the young rebay to the war camps in Siberia. He survived and arrived to the lower east side with the help of the joint in 1947. But sadly he was nifter as a young father of three in 1951 yishmo Boruk uh the father of Freda Gon. Then an anonymous anonymous contribution was made for the Oliver's protection for all of the ghouls. Yeah. I also want to add a a personal dedication. This is the tonight um not tonight Wednesday night, tomorrow night and and Thursday is the art site of my Roshiva Yakov Weinberg Zra. He was the older brother of Rab Noah Weinberg who founded a uh Ravakov Weinberg uh was an enormously brilliant and original uh thinker. Uh we used to always guess we used to play a little game. Whenever we had a Shila and we would wonder what would Roineberg say we would come up with our answer and we were never correct. He always had some original way of of viewing things. Uh he was a man of uncompromising truth. MSM MSMS and he was also a person who had a little bit of a hidden sight that not everybody knew of tremendous tremendous good hearts and devotion to he would go anywhere in the country or the world to help somebody. If somebody a kohl or an a needed some help or some khisuk he would travel all across the country to give a shir but he also helped many people individually who were not even not even connected to the yeshiva. uh the time that he spent with widows, with orphans. I know of a family who uh the father died at a very young age and know Weinberg spent a lot of time with the children, the young children uh telling them about um Haba and death and even playing with them to give them and give him comfort. So there's a whole side of his very good heart that may not have been so known to the public although because he did help so many people, many people did know about it. So uh he's a may his memory be a blessing and uh may all of us uh try to follow in his ways. Now Rabbison Feinstein once said about her husband Ra Mosha who also had an extraordinarily good and generous heart. He said you know for someone to say uh they want to learn as good as Ra Mosha that he that she said may may not be possible but we can all strive to have the midos and the good heart of Rab Mosha that is indeed in the realm of possibility. So uh in that I could say somewhat of the same thing about about Rinineberg. Okay. Uh so today uh we have para spinas and of course like like always the case you have to read paraspinas in connection to what happened last week in paraspolak and essentially the end of parasol is bum's plan B. Bum as we discussed last week had this great divine power to curse but Hashem didn't let him carry it out. Uh every time Bum wanted to curse us for three different times Hashem turned the curse of Bum into a bra and the particular mechanics the Arizal explains in a very very interesting way. I mentioned last week the Gamarian brais that bum's power of curse is because there's a fraction of a second every day where Hashem has tremendous anger in the world. And Bum knew exactly when that fraction of a second was. And if you curse during that time, it's like pressing the nuclear button. The curse is going to be effective. And it changes. The exact time changes every day. And that is why he could press the button and all of the curses. So says the Arizal. So how come Bum couldn't curse then? Because Hashem cancelled the moment of anger. There was no moment of anger. It's like you're pressing a button and there's nothing connected on the other side. There was no Eden risk. Eden risk is Aramaic for moment of anger. There was no Edun Riska on the days that Bum was trying to curse us. So Bum is a brilliant strategic thinker because here's the thing this explains plan B. What is the taklas? What is the purpose of this moment of divine anger? So again I mentioned last week that is what creates the notion of fear of God in the world that the reason why even a Russia might be reluctant to go all the way in is because the nama has a feeling of that tremendous divine anger even though it's only a fraction of a second and that is what inspires what might be called yasa onesh fear of punishment which can act it's not the highest madrega but it can act as a deterrent Ah ma here's bum's look what a brilliant you know some are quite brilliant his if I'm not able to curse them it got to be because the moment of anger is cancelled h the moment of anger is what dissawaits people from sinning so if there's no moment of anger they're much more prone to do a veros because they don't have that natural fear ah Ah, so let's go to plan B. I'm not able to curse them, but hates sexual immorality and so let's devise a plan where there'll be nowad there been that moment of anger perhaps would not have been enticed. But since Bum now knows there's no moment of anger, that is why they're susceptible to being enticed in ways that they would otherwise not be. And uh the daughters of Moab enticed the Jewish people to fornication and to idolatry. It's both Zenus and of this is the disgusting aid of Balor and a Mafa broke out. A plague broke out in which people were dying right and left. And what made it even worse was the head of the tribe or one of the heads of the tribe of Shimon Zimry is publicly with a Midionite woman Kazby Basor. Uh and that's creating a tremendous desecration of God's name. And even and when Mosher Rabeno told them to stop, they gave Mosher Rabeno a response that even flumxed him. It didn't momentarily didn't know how to respond. He says, "How can you be with a Midionite woman?" So they said back to him who allowed you to be with your midenite wife seor which of course is bal not a question obviously converted and the truth is mosha had separated from zip anyway 40 years before at the time of of matantyra. So people are dying right and left. The nsi of Shimon is fornicating with the midionite woman. Other people were with Zor and Zenus and the people who are not are there crying and sobbing and weeping. They don't know what's happening. The whole nation is falling apart and comes Pinas and he takes his sword and he kills Cosby and Zimry Bishas Misa. They're actually together. They're coupled together. uh and this is based on a principle that which theoretically applies even today that if a Jewish man is publicly having relations with a gentile publicly publicly so the haka is if you are a zealous person I'll talk about that a zealous person can kill them only bishas misa that used to be the law in Texas it's called inflente delto uh it means if a man catches his wife having adultery he can kill them both but only during the sexual act once they separate you know you can't do it so gazillion this is exactly the of pag which which again I will elaborate in a few moments that is only bishas misa once zim if zimri had separated from kusby even a canoi would not have been allowed to act but bishas misa and if It's public. If it's public, uh, it's not clear what public means. Does public mean outside? They were not having relations outside because the public says be bufferish. They were in a tent. So, what makes it public? Is it the idea the tent was open? Is that that a possibility or public just means 10 people know about it? Bish again. That's also a question exactly what is the definition of public? Uh, but canoy and I'll again I'll talk about it. Can I? And even though this is an act of violence, the immediate effect was the Mafa stopped. And it was not without consequence. 24,000 people were dead. But because of Pinhas's action, the Mafa did not destroy Ben Israel. Hashem himself is made. Hashem himself testifies because of Israeli I did not destroy Ben Israel in my zealousness. In other Hashem is saying the Mafa would have kept going stopped the Mafa. Now let's talk about a little just piphat. So what does Hashem say? Pin stood up for me and prevented me from destroying Ben Israel. Therefore, say to him no escalant of peace. Again, what is a co? These are not selfdefined expressions. I'm giving him a bris of shalom. We'll come back to that. And then it says and to him and to his children afterwards there is a covenant of kahunas that they are going to be kohanim. Now on that we have a very important comment of Rashi which is really from the Gmorrah itself and that is what do you mean the Pak seems to say because of this action Pinas became a Coen why Pinas is born from a Lazar pin is a coane he didn't have to become a Coen what does it mean so so the Gmorrah actually says was not a Cohen until he killed Zimry. Ah, Rashi asked Aasha, why was Pin not a Coen? He's born from Elazar, who's Aaron's son. So, Rashi says the following. He says, Aron was anointed with the Shem and Hamish, the special oil, and Alazar was anointed. So, any children that would be born to Alazar after his anointment would be Kohanim because Elazar became a Cohen. But Pinhus was born before Elazar was Nim. Elazar himself was not a Coen until he was anointed. Pinas was born before the anointing. So and Pinas was not anointed. So Pinas was not a Coen because he was born from a father who was not yet a Coen when Pinnas was born. So Pinas became a co-ain only as a result. Now many mafor say that there's a special reason here because the is that if a coane kills somebody a coen cannot do in the b cannot even it's to this very day a who kills cannot and cannot do the now there's a huge amount Mlo does that apply to uh killing a rode killing a terrorist does that apply to accidental killing many many but there's a general rule that disqualifies a cohane so had pinas been a cohane when he killed Zimry he might not have been able to keep the kahuna up because he's a coain jahareesh but because pinas did his before he was a Cohen. So the rule of Cohen, Johar Tenevesh doesn't apply. So it was Min Shamayim that Pinas did not become a Cohen till he killed Zimry. Uh so he got grandfathered in. So it would not be Cohen Shaharakanesh and indeed uh the line of Kohanim Gdoleim Kohanim Gdoleim of the bious reish primarily come through uh come through Pinh. So Lazar had other uh sons as well. They're not recorded in the Tyra and Driyamim. You see Pinas had had brothers etc. Uh but the kahuna gdola comes through Pinas at least during the second during the first B mikdash. Now we're going to come back to this because the idea of a canoi is a is a very very unique idea. Meaning not everybody is allowed to do this. only somebody that's a canoi is allowed to do it. So how do I know if I'm a canoi? So it's actually brought down if pin were to ask a sh am I allowed to do this? We don't give him a he does it because he can't stop himself because he feels so much. Now everybody knows that hypocrisy is normally considered to be something bad and yet there is something positive sometimes about hypocrisy. Alexander Alexander Pope famous I'm not sure if he's British or Scottish but uh famous famous uh author and wit once remarked hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue understand what that means in other words uh if I'm a hypocrite meaning privately I do all sorts of things but publicly I behave a certain way it's because I recognize there's a certain standard. Yeah, I don't live by it, but at least I recognize that this is right. So the mila of the hypocrite in some ways is he recognizes the standard even if he's not living it. And maybe in some ways that might be better than the person who bl says there are no you know this happens a lot. You know in the olden days old when I was growing up you know there was always intermarriage. It was much lower in percentage but there were people that were intermarried and there were even homosexuals. There were people who lived with with other men or whatever it is. But there was never a concept of publicizing it. If you invited your intramarried uncle to your kids bar mitzvah he understood he was not going to bring his non-Jewish wife to the bar mitzvah because it's a religious Jewish religious occasion. you know, he didn't expect and she didn't expect the non-Jewish woman didn't expect to be part of Jewish celebrations. And if somebody was a closet homosexual, so what they did privately or they did privately, but they would never think in a million years to somehow let's make a kiddish in honor of, you know, our our gay marriage. So that was hypocrisy indeed. But hypocrisy in in in the positive sense that there's a certain standard of behavior. We don't live by it, but we respect that this is a standard. Today, you understand all of that is thrown out the window. Today, it's not just somebody gets intermarried, but you have to regard that as a full-fledged, you know, wedding and marriage and relationship. And if you don't honor it and validate it uh and announce it from the beimma sometimes I know more than one rabbi who lost his job over that particular uh issue uh then you know you're racist or homophobic you know depending on what it is and the like. So hypocrisy is a mila and I'll bring you a raya I'll bring you a proof that you get credit for doing the right thing even if that's not your motive and the raya is the following. The daughters of Moab themselves were makil, the Jewish people caused them to stumble in the avodor of Balor and in the fornication. Now later in the Tyra we read that the Moabites and the Ammonites even if they convert are not allowed to enter the congregation of God. Meaning a Moabitete convert coming from Lot cannot marry into the Jewish people. And the reason that's given is because they did not give you food and water when you wanted to go through their land. They are cruel. They are ungrateful. They're not part of the Jewish. They shouldn't be part of the Jewish people. Now, we also know that that haka only applies to the male Moabitete convert. It does not apply to the female Moabitete convert. And hence, we have the story of Russ. Russ is a Moabitete, but she was permitted to marry Boaz. and she is the great grandmother of and the ancestor of Moshiach because thee only applies to the males. It does not apply to the females. Why doesn't it apply to the females? So the Garamos says because if the reason they're condemned is they didn't offer you food and water, we can only expect the men to offer food and water to a foreign nation. We certainly cannot expect the women to offer food and water to a foreign nation because that is not sona that is not in accordance with the standards of modesty. So the women the moabitete women are permitted to marry into cl Israel because they followed the norms of sos. Now wait a second here. If we ask ourselves why the moabitete women didn't offer the water, what are they? It's not sua. We don't talk to men. But when it comes to fornication and abara, there wasn't that much there. So obviously if they didn't want to offer food and water, they were acting out of the same cruelty that the men were acting on. So why do they get a break for being when it's obvious that was not their motivation? And the raya is balor itself. And the answer is they did the right thing even if it was not for the right reason. Meaning it's not right for women to come out to a foreign army and offer them food and water. It's not sua. It is an action of modesty not to do that. So the Moabitete women their behavior in that instance is correct even though that wasn't their motive. So you see a little bit of a case for hypocrisy there. Now there is another catch which I don't really have a good terrorist for and that's okay good. So the women are not condemned for not giving you food and water because it wasn't fine. But why shouldn't they be condemned for the of Balpur itself? That's a good kasha. But that's really a kasha on the Tyra. In other words, because the only reason the Tyra gives for why Moabitete people uh do not marry into the Jewish people, the puss gives two reasons. They didn't give you food and water and they hired bum. It actually does not say in the Tyra because of the sin of Balpour. So that actually is a good kasha. Why don't we have the poor and that's going to include women? So the medra says I mean it's kind of a circular answer doesn't want to ask for the women because there's rus from whom David will come. So you got to preserve Russ some way. So the whole it's like reverse engineering. The whole prohibition of the Moabites has to be articulated with reasons that don't apply to women in order that Russ gains admission because if you gave a reason that would apply to women that would have excluded R. I I understand the circularity of that that point but that that's actually how Kazal seemed to understand it. BU gave reason X namely like hidma they didn't give you water or they hired bum because reason X doesn't apply to women if it would have said the balor that would have applied to women and therefore hashem badka didn't use that that particular reason so the point I'm making is perhaps in a bit of a long-winded way that this is my defense of hypocrisy hypocrisy has a mo in religious life. Although there's a little contradiction to that, you know, uh the you know, um even people who don't fully keep kosher will often not want to eat. Khazer is like more tra in people's eyes than let's say beef that's not sheed correctly. And where is the great repugnance? There's almost like an a repugnance that a Jew has for pork. Um maybe because it's dirty, etc. But you know in fact even in there there's such a repugnance say you're not allowed to raise there's an isan to raise pigs. Now there's no is to raise donkeys or other non-culture animals. The only non-culture animal that is forbidden to raise is a khazer. So what makes the so bad? So the medra says a fascinating thing because there are two signs for a kosher animal. split hoofs and chewing the cud. Now an animal like a horse, it's a tra animal, but it's a very honest animal. It doesn't have split hoofs. It doesn't chew its cud. A dog dog is honest. The kazer is the epitome of hypocrisy because on the outside it has a pig has split hoofs. So on the outside it looks kosher and proper but it doesn't chew its cut. So in effect it is more repugnant. This is the kind of the it's more repugnant to look wholly on the outside and trave on the inside than to be traveled the outside. At least there's no hypocrisy. Okay. So there are, you know, Milus and Kasronos in both sides of the equation. But you see from Moab, I think an idea that doing the right thing has a certain valid validity even if it's for the wrong reason, as was the case of the Moabitete women not giving water. However, there is one mitzvah where if you're not doing it for the right reasons, it becomes the gravest of sins and that is to be a zealot for the glory of God. He who seeks to be a canoi when they are not doing it for the sake of the cano becomes an ara. And here we see an interesting thing when the Torah describes when Hashem Hashem is describing Hashem describes Pinas. So it mentions Pinas the son of Elazar the son of Aaron. It uses his grandfather removed my anger from Ben Israel by being a zealot. Rashi already raises the question why is there a why why is Pinas connected to his grandfather I mean normally Bener why go back why mentioned the grandfather so Rashi says because the problem is that on Pinas's mother's side there's actually a Midionite connection because Alazer married a midenite woman so people were saying what gives you the right to kill the Midionite woman you yourself come from midn says well don't look at the maternal grandfather look at the paternal one which is very fair because just because his paternal grandfather is iron doesn't change the maternal but I want to share with you a vote from the kasab cipher the kasab cipher who himself was one of the gdoleador was the son of the kasam cipher was even a bigger bigger god hador And he says the following. The way you have to read this is not Pinas the son of Elazar and Elazar is the son of Aram. That's how you would translate it. No. Pinas has two fathers. Pinas biologically >> is the son of Elazar and Pinas spiritually is the son of Arab. What's up the shot? Often when you have zealots and again I don't want to get too political but think about demonstrations and think about all sorts of things that go on. There are people that are hotheads. There are people who enjoy creating trouble, creating turmoil, creating dissension, creating maklucas, and they look for things to demonstrate against. They look for things to condemn. And it's not I'm not even necessarily exclusively referring to the army situation but even swarm somebody publishes a safer or a book there are makim there are critics who will go through the book with a fine tooth comb and they will say on page 86 in footnote 490 there is a statement that contradicts something Rafshak said in 1951. The person is a kyer. The person must not be kyus. We have to burn the book. What I'm saying by the way is not such an exaggeration. You get a finding the faults of others and then you convince yourself or other people I am standing up for the co of hashem. You might have thought pinas is a hotthead. This way he bolsters his bonafide. He bolsters his credentials as someone who stands up for the glory of God. He kills the rashim. So the tyra is made that Pinskas was not a canoi because he liked to do this work. Pitas was a canoi because he hated to do this work. If you like to be a zealot, it's the wrong line of business for you. You have to hate it and do it because it has to be done. What was Iron's mida? Iron's mida was o shalom shalom's mida was peace to pursue peace in some ways himself got in trouble with that. That's why he he didn't necessarily protest. I mean that that is the downside but Aron's meter was bad make trouble in that way. The tyrros made it that Pinas was a biological son of Elazar but Pinas was a spiritual son of Aaron. Pinas was not a canoi because he enjoyed exposing people's shortcomings. Pinas was a canoi because even though he hated to do it, he was acting number one for the coat of Hashem and number two out of raim for clo Israel who were dying uh left and right. He was not motivated out of hatred. He was motivated out of love. And that's the canoy. The kanoi has to be the one that hates what he's doing. Again, I I mean I don't want to be prejudiced myself because I mean because I I I am I am so negative about demonstrations that I am afraid that I may come across harsher than than it's proper for me to do so. But when I see a demonstration and I see the guys laughing and joking that this bus is being blocked and this garbage can is on fire and they're having a game. What exactly is that? What is so funny about this? If you really feel there's a tragedy involved in the gazerus against Benetra then you should be crying about it. If you're laughing mean you enjoy this. This is a game that's not canise. Now the emmes says the great prrisker more than 100 years ago remarked was 1918. By the way, I have to tell you one little thing, so totally not relevant. Uh I mentioned this is the art site coming up of uh Rev Weineberg, but this week earlier in the week was the art center of Revineberg's father-in-law, the founder of Ner Israel, Ryaka Verdman, who I was even I was closer to. And Raverman was a genius. He was an Eloy from a very young age. And when he was nine years old, he was taken to get a braha from the great salvim brisker. And in his office, in the Rashiva's office, even today in the nar is there's a fulllength painting of Rafim, a beautiful, beautiful painting. Rafim had unusual eyes. The the eyes come across in the painting. So Rverman says he was nine years old and Rafaim was giving him a bakina of sorts and somebody came in to talk to Rafaim about some communal matter. So the little Rverman was going to leave the room and Rafaim said you can stay. You can stay. So Raverman stayed and he overheard this conversation when he was nine and he said what he learned from that conversation guided him his whole life when he started yeshiva years later. just a practical advice and approach of it's almost as if and maybe it is the case had aesh that this was something this little boy had to hear because it would be useful in his life and his life later. But what did say about zealous zealous and we know people identify to this day brisk or kanoyim. So listen to what said about a canoi. What is a legitimate canoy and what is an illegitimate canoy? It's like the relationship of a housewife and a cat, right? Is a problem. Let's say you live in an apartment and it's mice infested. A lot of mice around. So the uh housewife gets a cat to kill the mice. Now the truth is the housewife and the cat do have a common agenda. Get those mice. But the nafkamina is that the housewife would be much happier if there were no mice to be caught. The cat would be sorely disappointed. Aoyan does not get pleasure in the shortcomings of other people. It's not like I found it. I found it. I found it. Like everything else if you look you find a true canoi wishes that call Israel would would serve Hashem would do mitzvah and if there are different aas for which you have to sometimes be very strong it's done with great sadness the false canoy are only happy because they can findness of others. So to be a canoi, you have to ask yourself, are you the housewife? Are you the cat? Because if you're the cat, then find another line of work. This is not the for you to get involved in to be look for movement, look for blemishes, uncover that could be a full-time job. You know uh in Perkyas when the when the Mishna in Perkyas enumerates the 48 qualities by which you acquire Tyra. So one of the 48 qualities is you love you love uh chastisement. So some people think that means yeah I'm I love to give people muser. Well, that's not what it means. It doesn't mean I love to give muser. No, I love to receive it. That's a very hard thing to receive to try to improve myself. That is a very hard and high mga because most of us including myself, we get hurt or we get angry, we get offended. So to be is a galda madrega. But to love to give maser, why would you love to give maser? What is that? That's the cat who's woman looking for blemishes. And that's why the cyher says that um Pinas is the son of Elazar but Pinas is also the son of Aaron the mid of so I want to add a little bit and I don't have a ria for this that I have a certain sense that the kasav's statement is a little bit autobiographical or at least it's about his own father although he doesn't say Now theam cipher was alive at the very beginning of the reform movements in Hungary and in Germany and in those days the reform movement was spreading like wildfire in a lot of ways. Theam cyer was an absolutely fiery opponent against the reform movement. He denounced it at every opportunity. He didn't allow anything. He didn't even allow a schol to give a drussia in the vernacular in German or Hungarian because he felt that was too much of a concession to the reform movement that Solanter said around 50 or 60 years later that he thought the kasam cipher was too extreme that perhaps there could have been kira there could have been different things again that's unusual okay so people look at the kasam cipher and they think of theam cipher as you you know, hotheaded, angry, always seeing the negative. I have a little bit of a a feeling that the cipher is describing his father. My father beta wasn't looking to expose people's blemishes. He wasn't looking to criticize. He wasn't looking to demean. He was not looking to humiliate. He was not acting out of hatred. He was acting out of a And you know I I think what I'm saying might in fact be exactly what what's what's in the you don't know but maybe the cipher was writing these words about a true cano because the truth is of all the kasam cipher is considered to be one of the great a very very zealous person but the cypher is telling us it came from the shalom right You know the kasam cipher's father-in-law from the second marriage was Rabi Kger. They were almost the same age. It's interesting. They were just I think kasam was two years younger than beggar. So they were kamat the same age but was his father. Now rib taka was not as big a koi as did not go out and make m and protest and the like. The kasab cipher did and I think the kasab cipher is trying to be masber that you have to understand who the kasam cipher really really was. And in this connection I want to share with you a a vort uh from Ravk very beautiful vort you know uh the amida the the standing prayer so we commonly call it at least during the week esray the the prayer of 18 blessings. problem is of course if you count the number of brahos in the amida it's 19 brahos so where do you get 18 so the garra in braos explains that the anessa the men of the great assembly made a prayer of 18 blessings much later after the bay uh in yavna when the assembled in yavna so rain gum in yavna this is after the bayeni said we have to have a braha against the minim against the heretics against the sectarians. They're still a lively maklo exactly who are the minimum that he's talking about. Many say it may refer to early generations of Christianity that were still the problem was they were in schuls they were still identifying as Jews. So there was the poison of having them within the Jewish community. We need to have a braha against them. And that became the braha of malinim to the informers to the heretics. There should not be any any hope. And Rael then said who can write a bra against the minim. And they identified a very very great person hakan. Hakatan either means the short one which is possible short or Hakatan means the humble the humble one the modest one and is given the pride of authorship of what's called it's not the 19th in position but it is the 19th bra that was that was added to give you a sense of how great was the garedan we don't know we don't have too many teachings from him but the gored says that when he was once sitting with the uh in the in an aliyah in the second story a baso came a voice came out of heaven and said there is one person among you who is as worthy as Mosher Rabeno to have the shina rest upon him and everybody looked at Hakata. That's how great he was. Everybody looked at they just knew this is the one that the Basco was referring to. But Ravk asks a very good question. What is so difficult about who can write the braha against the minimum? Well, anybody could write the brah against the minimum. I mean what what you have to have to write the what is so about the against the heretics that you need. So says Rav Cook and this too is actually an autobiographical comment because it reflects Ravk Cook's life and that is Shinim is very very different than every other brah in every other we ask God for blessings. We ask him for health. We ask him for pasa. We ask him for gula. We ask him for the restoration of mus. We ask him for the building of we ask him to hear our prayers. We're asking Hashem for brahos. The only braha in the amida that specifically calls upon god to punish and destroy is basam. So here's the problem. Cook says hashem does not accept prayers that ask for even the destruction unless they're motivated out of love for claw Israel. and a desire to sanctify God. If you're motivated by anger, resentments, and even hatred, even against people who may deserve it, that that does not give your entree. Your has to be motivated out of love. Meaning, I curse the Russia, not because I hate the Russia. I curse the Russia because I love Ammy Israel and I want them to be freed. of what the Russia would do to them. So when says who can write the meaning given the fact that the Romans and the Christians have done so much harm to ami Israel who could pray without that hate and without that anger without that resentment it's like praying for the fall of Nazism without hating Adolf Hitler. Who could do that? So the one that was identified is Katan says RV cook. Why would Katan be the right candidate? So the truth is as I said we have very very few teachings from Katan but we have one teaching in Pavos which is the teaching of Katan. And the funny thing is it's not even his teaching. It's just a puk in Mish that he would say over and over again. And that puk in Mish says, "Do not rejoice in the downfall of your enemy." Remember this is what Hashem told the should not rejoice as the Egyptians are dying. Cook says that's the one who can write the because he's not acting out of hate. He's acting out of love. Now once that kavana is in the braha says as a general rule this applies to all the brahas of the sagdullah or later put in kavanos in those words. So even if I as an individual don't have all those cabanas or even if I have the wrong cabana the words will have that right that's a famous uh thought of explains that the words themselves contain all of the kavanos that were put into them. So even if my kavana is deficient, the word carries that kakim is explains that about about so here what cook is there and once again I would have to say that if you know anything about rv cookook's life this is very much an autobiographical reflection because Ravk to this day is very very controversial in the yeshiva and the kedi world. one hand he was a great great God to the other hand Rafkuk was extraordinarily tolerant and forgiving and loving of all sorts of segments of Jews who were not necessarily keeping the Torah uh properly. I will say that you have to remember that um Gdollam like Rashommo that Zman and Gdole like Rael Yash and Rais Alman earlier pes Frank these are earlier Gdollim they had tremendous tremendous love and even reverence for Revk. So we have cooks unfortunate unfortunately the reputation has gotten tarnished with people who are who don't understand this but among the great great kdoleanim of the prior generation he was considered to be kesh kadashim again that doesn't mean people accepted all of the implications of his approach that's one thing but the idea that he was not a phenomenally great person in In fact, Salvich once said of Svichek Salvetk only came to Eros once in his life in the 1930s as a young man. He was up as a candidate to be chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and he he didn't get the job. This is before the Medina. But he said he was to meet Ruff Cook shortly before Ruff Cook's death. And he said Rafik says interesting things say he said about Ruff Cook uh an interesting point. He said people look at RV cook and they say he's a philosopher. He says he certainly was not a philosopher. Philosopher kind of makes orderly massudar arguments in which each step follows from the other step. Ravk was absolutely unsistatic and Ravk Cook was a poet much more than a mystical poet. He was not a philosopher but Rev Salvik said of course he's also a brisker right so you could understand briskers are not fans of poetry so to speak that's not their their thing but he said Rev. Cook was the most unusual religious personality he ever met and he told a misa about cook although Salvetk was not a a witness to this. uh he said that uh at some point in the early 1900s Revk along with other Rabbanim traveled around the different kibbutim and the new Moshaim that were being started and these kibbutim and moshim were not only non-religious they were actually anti-religious many of them were communist shamat mameish mamish mamish anti-religion so in one kibbutzkook shows up and it's er shabas and uh Ravk Cook requested the the head of the kibbutz uh could we organize a minion Friday night and I'm here let's let's have a minion etc and the guy said no we don't do minan here he refused to make a minion on shabas all right so ate in the dining room uh he ate in the dining room he brought his own kala and wine they're serving tray food including khazer uh they have radios blaring and they have sewing machines going on. There was no sense of respect for the rabbi that we're not going to do these things. So there's Shabas and there's and there's no minion and cookook is smoozing with the the the theim of the kibbut and he's eating bread and drinking drinking wine the wine that he brought and that's all that he had. The next morning the exact same thing happened. There's no minion uh of cooking just smooing. He didn't give a dar to Torah. He didn't get up and give a speech. He didn't give a mushmoose. He simply sat with them, talked, he praised them for building up Arit Israel. And he said, "You're doing good things." Then Suda Shaliches, same thing. Uh at the end of Shabas, he just says, "It was so wonderful to spend Shabas with you. I hope the next time we can actually have a whole meal together." That's all he said. So as soon as he left the head of the kibot gathered everybody around and says we're kashering the kitchen we're making it kosher and he said had the rabbi given us any muser at all we would have just kicked him out but he accepted us he validated us he built us up he respected what we were doing now we want to do something for him and tell this story about you know this is actually how you give muser right you give muser not necessarily by taking people down, but by building people up and then they'll want to meet you. They'll want to do something for you, too. So, I'm not going to say they were doing it for God. They're actually doing it for cook. But, you know, you do a mitzvah and eventually that brings you to Hashem in various ways. And Rev Salvet was so impressed with this story that he that he must have heard second or third hand. Rev. Salvetric used to say this story over as an example of how you change people. Uh there's a similar story with Rafaiser which I love. It's a very simple story but it makes a real real good point. You know Gradzenski who died in 1940. He died in the middle of uh World War II. But he was in charge millions and millions of dollars went through his hands. He was in charge of distributing money to the yeshivas to Almanus to to to everybody. Uh he was really in charge of all of the Jews in in Europe during the most difficult times of World War II. That's why when he died it was I mean it was a tragedy but but it wasn't just you lost the godle. That's which is always tragic. I mean this was he was mamish the father. So the head of the joint or not the head of the but the the the Polish or the I'm sorry the American representative of the joint who was sent to Poland uh actually wasn't Poland Poland was under Nazi occupation but to Lithuania. Lithuania was briefly free know went back and forth but uh the American representative who was able to gain access to Lithuania to give out food packages and the like was a physician from Cleveland whose name was Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Schmidt was not firm at all. He was a m Shabas but he was in charge of distributing stock. So we had to meet with me to determine where the money should go. And this was a business meeting. They're simply talking discussing business and and the like. And at some point Rafa put his hand on Dr. Schmidt's hand and he says Dr. Dr. Schmidt, do you mind if I call you Rebuil? Can I call you Rebuil? So for some reason this very Dr. Schmidt became very emotional because he started crying because Reb is a title of respect. He says, you know, Rebei, you know, I don't keep shabas. I'm not observant. I don't put on fill in. I don't din. He says, I'm not a Reb. I'm a doctor and or you can call me if you want but I don't deserve a man like you to call me Reber said to him what do you mean you come from comfortable United States you come to a wartorrn country that's surrounded with Nazis on one side and the other and you really risk your life to help Jews and to give stucka you think Hashem doesn't value what you're doing you think you don't deserve respect and admiration and cover you think you're not rebuil and Dr. Schmidt writes because he wrote a an autobiography after the after the war about his experiences and he said that he started crying and right after that meeting he resolved he was going to become a shabas and he became an orthodox Jew as a result of one meeting one meeting with there's so much to say about this did not give him proofs of god uh or the seven wonders of Jewish history. I'm sorry I'm a little late on this tonight. Uh he didn't give them, you know, how do you know God gave the Torah to Moshi? All of the philosophical questions that people need. What are the proofs showed him? Love showed him respect. Showed him that he is a man that's doing good things. And a person gets that type of validation. They just wanna they want to embrace the mitzvah. They want to keep Torah. And Rahim was not a cure of professional. In fact, Rhim was not even a good speaker. Typically at the gura conventions or the different events where Gdole came, he never spoke. Actually, he was not a he was not a public speaker. But you see in this individual love that he had this is what Drafuk is writing about. And this is what Rafaim Brisker says. The canoy is not the cat that likes to jump on the mice. The canoi is the person who really really wishes there wouldn't be any mice and acts because they have to act, but they do so with great great reluctance. If you love this stuff, you are in the wrong line of work. I'm sorry. You know, I understand. Normally, we would advise you to pursue a profession that you love. That's true. But kaiise has to be something you don't like and then you can do it because you're doing it from actually I heard a very similar thing. This was an unlikely source from Rabbi Avi Weiss. Ai Weiss is a very very very controversial person. I would not mention him in but I'll mention him here more free audience here. Abby Weiss is a very modern orthod very modern modern modern Orthodox rabbi the founder of what he calls open orthodoxy which is now called central uh is now called modern orthodoxy uh was called open orthodoxy he changed it to modern orthodoxy and that's why modern orthodoxy became central orthodoxy the attitude changed name on both sides uh very controversial and there's a lot of stuff he does that there's no way I can accept or validate so I'm not identifying myself with his hashkafas But I will say that he does have a great Abas Israel and he had been an activist for many many years in the 1970s when there was still the Soviet Union and they were not letting Jews out. So he would often get arrested. He would like chain himself uh in front of the Russian embassy in New York and he got arrested many times. So he once said a thing. He says, "You're only allowed to do this work if you hate having your picture in the newspaper. You hate it." And then you do it because you have to do it. When you start liking the publicity, when you start liking getting your name in the paper, that's already a sign that your idealism is being tainted by other things. And that's something you have to watch yourself all the time that you're not just into it for the publicity or the like. Again, I I I think that's a that's a true statement. So just just to conclude a little bit about the idea of this zealousness, a zealousness that is not motivated out of love has many many pag and I just want to mention three very quick downsides to it. First of all, when you're so focused on seeing the negatives, you actually develop a cynical personality which can no longer respond to the positivities that do exist in the world. You always see the negative. You always see the downside. Um, in fact, in some ways, we see this even with Pinas. It says Pinras who is the epitome of the canoe Shamayim the epitome. Pinas according to Khazal never really died and he morphed into Elio Hanavi. Now Elio Hanavi is actually criticized by Khaz not well well they they learned took him this way for failing to see the good in Claw Israel. At some point he says to Hashem forget about these people. They're no good. they anol your bris they are not faithful to you that's when Hashem basically fires him and says anoint your successor and as the Rambam is Mazbar when a man Israel only sees the negatives of Israel Hashem takes him away to some degree even with Mosher Rabenu that that is actually what happens and Elio was given an onesh it's an onesh that he has to show up at every bris and every peser to show that Jews are faithful in one way or the other. Which means even the the the greatest who acted Shamayim can get negatively affected by the negativism. If I could draw in a metaphor a little bit, Mark Twain um is not talking about this, but he's talking about the idea that, you know, Mark Twain comes back that he was a riverboat. His name was Samuel Clemens, but he was a riverboat uh pilot. And Mark Twain is a something that you call out when you mark the place where you have to avoid collisions or whatever it is. So, he became Mark Twain. So he writes about the fact that his experience as a river pilot ruined the joy and pleasure he used to have in looking at the Mississippi River. You know if you don't know anything about you see a beautiful river golden when you're a pilot all you see is this rock and that rock and that rock and all of the sakunas that you have to avoid and you lose the capacity to see the beauty. And he gave Mark Twain was obviously a great writer. He gave an example. It's not the most senious example, but but it's such a smart example. He says, "Let's look at a dancer, a ballet dancer." So the uneducated person sees grace and movement and fluidity. Now let's imagine you're an orthopedic surgeon and you're watching the same thing. So with every movement, oh that ligament is being twisted and that muscle fiber is being torn. You can't see the beauty anymore. You lose the capacity to see the godless and the goodness and the kaduca. And that's why frankly fired a Leoi who was pinas and even Mishraenu. I mean at least the way the Rambam learns. The Rambam says beferish that Mishu Rabenu was Nanash not because he hit the rock instead of speaking to it as Rashi learns but because he called the Jewish people rebellious ones and he was angry at them and Hashem said you can't be a monik if you get angry even so that's one idea that makes you a bitter negative person which you no longer see the beauty of other Yidden. A second aspect is that it's often an excuse not to look into yourself. You know, it's so easy to project outwards and identify this and this and this and in that way you avoid the more difficult aid of looking into me. What is wrong with me? How do I have to correct? You know, it's easier to blame. Oh, Mashiach hasn't come because of what their whoever they are, what for for what they're doing. Maybe so, but I can't change them. I have to ask myself, what am I doing that might be preventing the gula from coming? And that I can work on that it's for me to work on. Right? So, that's the other thing. And it's very difficult to do chuva because you can't do chuva in this because you're convinced that you're right say when it says inos this is really a that any that's will always endure. Now in context that's a positive statement meaning we study it we learn it but they say when it's shim it's going to last forever it's not going to get resolved because each side is totally convinced that they're right and there's no a least when I know I'm doing something wrong even if I have a at least I know I got to do chuva for it but when I'm convinced that I am righteous That's very dangerous, right? Because um I heard from that that's the end of what does it say? Atonone our sins for your sake. So most interpret it meaning we don't deserve it but may you give us atonement for your sake. Ravnata said a different translation atone the sins that we commit for your sake meaning we think we're doing a for you those are the hardest ais for which we need uh for which we need kapor and the final I want to point out is a a thought from notes that there's a certain just like there's a certain law of physical nature let's imagine god forbid a baby falls into a fire and I jump into the fire and I take out the baby. Did I do a good thing? You did a wonderful thing. But does that mean you're not going to get burnt? Not necessarily. Meaning when you get when you play with fire, you're not being burnt as a punishment. If you would be get burnt as a punishment, then if I'm doing a righteous thing, why would I get burnt? It's not a punishment. It's a consequence of the world as God created it. Unless you're an unusual sadic that merits a supernatural miracle. So says when you cause pain to another human being, even if you think it's justified, it's right, it's totally good, that doesn't mean you're not going to suffer. It says the same law that playing with fire means you get burnt whether your motives are good or bad hurting people will come back to haunt you. Now sometimes you have to be willing to do that anyway like saving the baby. But it does mean think twice. Don't just tell yourself oh it's shayim so there'll be no consequences is saying just because it's shamayim does not immunize you from consequences the consequences might be there anyway therefore you better be sure that it's justified right this is a word so these are different nikudas you know we're coming um I mean we hope the bas mikdash could still be rebuilt before the fast of the 17th of Thomas in which case we won't have to fast this year. Um but if if we do have to fast and may be the last fast and hopefully even if we fast now before tish there can be a gula. But certainly this is a time of year where we think about the reasons for the basikdash and everyone knows that although the first mikdash was destroyed because of gileas but the second bas mikdash was because of the hatred that existed among Jews and the shi says any generation in which the bas mikdash is not rebuilt must be guilty of the same aos that caused So when we say that the B mikdash was destroyed because of it got to be there still is that otherwise we would have the mikdash it's not like there was that a there is that a but in truth I don't have to prove it I don't think you need to prove the exists in Israel it's very very obvious although there's also another side of it that's not the only aspect I mean there there is much is well we have to see the good that's the whole thing I'm saying but nevertheless the notion of overcoming the is a major major challenge for all of us and if we truly want to build a bas we do so not by bombing the mosque and starting construction of a physical temple but by trying to rectify in our own individual lives the reasons for to the and by removing the reasons for the will be z to the bin the giloy the revelation of may we be amen You my birthday tomorrow.