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Selecting the Good out of the Bad

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin When Hashem informed Avraham that he was going to bring great retribution upon the people of Sodom, Avraham understood that this was his cue to argue on their behalf. When thinking about the people of Sodom, however, how could God expect Avraham to defend a people who were so diametrically opposed to his values? Avraham represented the attribute of Chesed (giving kindness), and had spent his life trying to share the material gifts of his tent as well as his ideas with the rest of mankind. The people of Sodom, by contrast, valued the ideal of keeping things to oneself and not sharing with others. The Mishnah (Avos 5:10) states that when a person has the attitude of, “שלי שלי ושלך שלך”, “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours,” this is the Sodomite value. As the Midrashim relate, the people of Sodom were opposed to the concept of charity and of inviting guests into their homes. They actively punished anyone whose heart was stirred with a compassionate gesture toward the poor, which is why the Sodomites were so incensed when Lot invited his guests, the three angels, into his home (19:4-9). Avraham’s value was that of the Chasid (pious one) in the Mishnah: “שלי שלך ושלך שלך” – “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours.” Why did Hashem expect Avraham to defend Sodom?

Doing for yourself, doing for others

R. Yaakov Lainer suggests that although Avraham spent his life giving of himself to others, he also needed to understand that at certain times and places, it is appropriate for every human being to stand on their own two feet and not be on the dole. The people of Sodom represented a value that, in certain situations, could actually be considered virtuous. Consider the parent whose adult child still lives in the basement, but is capable of living on his own and being financially independent. At some point, the parents need to encourage the child to move on and be more independent, not because they are cruel, but because they know that at some point, we do a disservice to others by making life too easy for them. Avraham believed that his era needed the kindness that a parent shows to a young child who cannot yet take care of himself, because it was a period in history when man was still immature and discovering his world. God testified about His own creation (Psalms 89:3): “כִּֽי־אָמַ֗רְתִּי ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה” – “I created this world with Chesed.” That is, there was nothing that God’s creations did to deserve to be created; our very existence is based on the kindness of someone who has confidence in another’s future. Like the undeveloped character Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, mankind needed someone to invest in them in the hopes that they would make something of themselves. Recognizing God’s benevolence, Avraham sought to emulate this kindness in a generation that was still relatively close to that incipient period of creation.

Manifestations of Chesed

What Hashem wanted Avraham to also appreciate, however, was that there would come a time in man’s societal evolution where Chesed could actually be counter-productive to man’s growth. The older and wiser that society becomes, the more mankind develops the capacity for self-sufficiency, and the more that it is important for people to withdraw from the public sphere and allow others the ability to become independent, without relying on Chesed. We can see some of the manifestations of Chesed run awry in our own society. In an effort to eliminate poverty and suffering, liberal democracies have created benevolent social systems that ensure welfare and free access to medical care and other basic amenities. At the same time, this has resulted in the undesired side-effect of a certain percentage of the population losing its drive for self-sufficiency and ambition. Society has provided the option for people to live out the bulk of their lives as drug addicts and vagrants because the welfare safety net provides them the financial cushion to do so. This is not to say that welfare is a bad thing; just that for a minority of people, it results in more harm than good. In the Messianic Age, the Talmud teaches that we will no longer accept converts. Implicit in this statement is that there will come a period in human history where man will no longer be afforded the Chesed of being given something for nothing. At some point in the future, man will reap the fruits of his own efforts, each according to his own degree.

Avraham and Yitzhak -Creating balance

Indeed, this was the difference in attitude between Avraham and his son, Yitzchak, who represented not Chesed, but Gevurah (lit., “might”), a certain effort to help mankind arrive at self-sufficiency. This is not to say that Yitzchak was an unkind man, but rather that his compassion for human beings impelled him to help others help themselves. Instead of sharing his own greatness with others, he withdrew from others in order to give them the opportunity to grow and develop on their own power. By prompting Avraham to pray on behalf of the people of Sodom, Avraham came developed the argument that perhaps a certain percentage of the people were motivated by a virtuous attitude of trying to help others arrive at self-sufficiency. “Perhaps there are 50 righteous people (18:24),” reasoned Avraham, who refuse to give charity because they wish to foster within others a proper work ethic and bring others to independence. It was only when Hashem explained that the Sodomites were not motivated by anything virtuous, that Avraham relented. The dichotomy between Avraham’s value of Chesed and Sodom’s value of self-sufficiency allows us to realize that every social movement, no matter how antithetical to the Torah, has a kernel of virtue, when applied in the right time and the right place.

Acknowledging value in opposing ideology

As Rav Kook wrote, in discussing the nascent anti-religious communism of his time: “One must realize that every bad ideology contains a kernel of goodness which attracts people to it. Accordingly, so long as one only focuses on the evil of the opposing ideology, those who see its goodness will not accept the arguments to the contrary. It is only when one acknowledges the good kernel that inheres within a bad ideology, concedes the attraction to the ideology because of the small amount of goodness within it, and argues for the preservation of that small amount of good, will he succeed in convincing the adherents to come to the other side and rehabilitate themselves.” When taking into account the constantly shifting sands of our society, we’d do well to hold them up to the light of the Torah, and exercise caution before embracing new ideologies that may run counter to the values of our heritage. At the same time, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. It’s worthwhile to listen carefully to our ideological opponents, and try to extract the kernels of value even when rejecting the overarching system. Our tradition teaches us that each generation is coming closer to the ultimate perfection of the Messianic Age. Even corrupt social movements may contain the kernel of that necessary ingredient that moves the marker forward towards man’s perfection. We look forward to the day when our society arrives at an ideology that is truly consistent with our Torah, purified of the chaff of an imperfect world. May we see it, bb”a.

Answer the Call, Realize Your Destiny

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin In parshat Lech lecha we are introduced to Avraham Avinu in a very curious way. After learning in last week’s parsha that Avram’s father, Terach, had taken the whole family from Ur Casdim and traveled to Charan, our parsha begins with Hashem telling Avram to leave his family in Charan and travel to the land that God would designate for him. In this narrative, we learn nothing about Avraham the man, or why he was spoken to and chosen by God. This is quite bizarre, especially in light of the fact that in Parshas Noach, the Torah did make a point of saying that Noach was a righteous and pure man (6:9), and this is why God chose him to save humankind from the Flood. Why doesn’t the Torah text express anything at all about who Avraham was and why Hashem chose him to be the father of the Chosen People? The Maharal of Prague (d. 1609) saw great theological significance from this. When God chose Noah to save the world from the Flood, it was specifically BECAUSE Noah was righteous. But God did NOT choose Avraham to be the progenitor of Am Israel BECAUSE he was righteous. If Avraham’s selection had been due to his righteousness, then one might logically argue that as soon as Avraham’s progeny ceased emulating their ancestor’s righteousness, their selection as the chosen nation could be revoked. But that is precisely the point: Because the basis of Israel’s selection was not predicated on any particular deed or behavior, it is a selection that is irrevocable. This is why the Torah says nothing about Avraham’s righteousness.

Persecuted and hounded for beliefs

One clearly sees very important theological underpinnings in the Maharal’s approach. The medieval Christian world strongly maintained the theology of supersessionism – or, replacement theology – that God had revoked the chosen status of the Jewish people and instead conferred chosennes upon Christians. The Maharal’s Torah is therefore a polemic, demonstrating from the Torah text that the selection of the Jewish people was an irrevocable one, countering the Christian argument of the Jews’ replacement. By contrast, the Ramban (13th cent.) takes a non-theological approach, based on the rich midrashim that fill in the blanks of the early parts of Avraham’s life. According to these midrashim, Avraham was persecuted and hounded for his monotheistic beliefs. He had concluded early in his life that there is really only one God, and that no thing or person other than God should be the object of worship. His beliefs were deemed an affront to the culture of his time and place and he was therefore forced to flee Ur Casdim with his family. Ramban suggests that the reason why the Torah doesn’t detail any of this back story is because “the Torah does not wish to detail the ideologies of idolaters or the faith disputes between Avraham and the Chaldeans.”

Theological vs Logical

This is almost the opposite of the Maharal’s thought. For the Ramban, instead of teaching a theological stance about the Jewish people’s chosen status, the Torah seeks to sidestep any stories about theological disputes. The Ramban seems to be arguing that Avraham in his early life didn’t even have the opportunity to display righteousness. He had arrived at a belief in a unitary God based on logically looking at the world around him. As soon as he tried to preach his beliefs, he was hounded and persecuted. How could he invite people into his tent when he was a social pariah? Had the Torah prefaced why God chose Avraham, one might have thought that the main part, the very basis, of the Jewish people’s selection is their faith. But in reality, the main thing that God seeks and takes pleasure from the Jewish people is manifest in the second part of Avraham’s life, when he had the freedom to interact with his neighbors without persecution. In Canaan, he could spread his wings of righteousness and demonstrate how a Jew behaves with Chesed and openness to his fellow man. That is the basis of our selection as the Chosen People, not our logical conclusions about monotheism.

Demonstrating Jewishness

This is an important lesson for all of us. Every Jew needs a certain degree of education and an understanding of the Torah and its faith claims. But the true manifestation of what it means to be a Jew is not to be found in the classroom or the Beit Midrash. Rather, only when a Jew can turn all of those teachings into practical behavior does he or she truly demonstrate their Jewishness. When we can interact with our fellow human beings with kindness and demonstrate Hashem’s desire for humanity to live for a higher purpose, it is then that we are living Judaism. When the story of our lives is written, the highlights will not be from our earlier years when we were in grade school or yeshiva, going over the vitally important Torah texts that lay the foundation for our future lives. Rather, our chronicles will focus on our deeds, and how we succeeded in making an impression on others in our circle of influence. Unquestionably, our religious upbringing colors and sets the stage for our behavior in our future life, but this religious education is only the preparation for the real goal of the Jew. Just as Avraham’s later stages in Canaan are richly depicted and his earlier years of theological struggle are overlooked, so will be the case in our stories when they are documented before God.

Hearing the call of "Lech Lecha"

After citing the Ramban’s question, the Sfas Emes (d. 1905) makes an insightful point based on the Zohar. To answer why the Torah doesn’t inform us of Avraham’s righteousness at the beginning of our parsha, the Sfas Emes asserts that God’s call to Avraham of “Lech Lecha” – “Make the journey,” is itself a demonstration of his righteousness. In fact, that call of “Lech Lecha” is made to every single human being. What made Avraham different is that he actually heard the words “Lech Lecha” while everyone else ignored the call. In life, Hashem is constantly calling out to each of us, “Lech Lecha,” go to your station, reach your destiny, arrive at where you ultimately belong to achieve your purpose. There is nothing more righteous than hearing the call of “Lech Lecha” and acting upon it.

Acting upon the call of "Lech Lecha"

The irony for our modern times is that sometimes our inability to spread our wings and realize our destiny is not because we are stuck in Ur Casdim, persecuted and hounded by the idolaters of society. Rather, our inability to act may be because we feel trapped within the confines of the Jewish community and its often overbearing strictures. We may hear the call of “Lech Lecha,” but feel powerless to act upon it because we fear what people within our community will think of us. We shudder from trespassing the social norms that have been established in Jewish communities, where staying within the confines of the walls of the “shtetl,” as it were, is sometimes promoted over going out and making a difference in the larger world. The lesson of our parsha should be: You cannot realize your destiny until you act upon the call of “Lech Lecha.” Your life will only be actualized when you can go to where you can be yourself. Sometimes, that requires one to leave behind one’s family and the culture from which they hail. The “Lech Lecha” call of your family and friends may be completely different from yours, and what works for them may not be your destiny. Ultimately, if we follow Hashem’s unique call of “Lech Lecha” for each of us, both we and the world we are meant to improve will be all the better for it. May we merit to hear the call so that we can usher in the Redemption speedily, bb”a.

Noah, Original Sin, and Facing New Challenges

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin After the great Flood, Noach planted a vineyard (9:20). The very next verse tells us that he drank from the wine of the vineyard and got very drunk. This led to a shameful exposure of Noach to his sons, and the unfortunate aftermath. I’ve always read this passage as an expression of nihilism by a man who barely saved his world, but at the same time lost everything of his previous life and existence, and lost all sense of future purpose. After the initial euphoria of leaving the Ark and surviving the Flood, imagine the vast emptiness and void that confronted Noach. Here was a man whose best years were behind him, and who saw nothing ahead for his future. Could we really blame him for his Ecclesiastical attitude that “everything is vanity”? This reading of Noach’s actions in the verses is influenced by Rashi and the Sages, who tell us that when the Torah states (9:20): “וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּטַּע כָּרֶם”, the word “וַיָּחֶל” means that Noach profaned. They read the verse as Noach, the nihilist, being a man who profaned himself by planting a vineyard before other, more useful crops, so that he could indulge in the gratuitous pleasures of the earth (he was an “אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה” – a man of this earth). He essentially gave up on any higher purpose. As Nietzsche famously said, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” So many people who feel “stuck” in life and who can’t find a purpose will often use drugs and alcohol to drown out the pain of a life left unfulfilled. Perhaps Noach intoxicated himself for this reason. (This is often the political argument against creating too much of a welfare state for the lower class, in that those on the dole will often give up on themselves. We often do more harm by patronizing those who could and should help themselves instead.)

Noach the innovator

But there’s another tradition about this story, one that portrays Noach in a more positive, even noble, light. According to Radak and others, “וַיָּחֶל” does NOT mean that he profaned himself, but rather that he began something new that had not been attempted before. Up until this act of planting, people didn’t plant actual vineyards; they rather planted individual vines in the hope of harvesting some table grapes for their community. Noach innovated the use of grapes for wine, which necessitated the creation of large vineyards, far larger than the individual vines that were planted for fruit consumption alone. Noach is called the “אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה” because he was truly a master of agriculture. This narrative continues a rabbinic tradition from the end of Parshat Bereishit, which tells us that Noach received his name, which literally means “making easier,” because he innovated plowing with animals to ease the difficulty and travail involved in cultivating the soil. According to this interpretation, instead of us confronting the nihilistic Noach after the Flood, we are confronting the Noach who wishes to rebuild and recreate a whole new world with even more amenities than before. But if so, then why did this story have such a tragic ending? Why did Noach’s newfound approach to manufacturing wine, a beverage staple for most of human history, end up with his degradation and his cursing his son and grandson? Radak answers simply that this story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of wine, and of overindulging in intoxicating spirits. But to get to a deeper meaning, we’ll need to reference the Jewish mystical tradition.

Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

The Zohar (Noach 73a) states that the vine that Noach planted was quite extraordinary. Of the various opinions of what type of tree the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was, one opinion is that it was a vine. Noach somehow obtained a shoot from this vine from the Garden of Eden, and planted it anew. In the language of the Zohar: “Noach sought to replicate the original act of eating from the Tree. But his objective was NOT to replicate Adam’s sin, but rather to understand it and to rectify the world thereby. He failed, however. When he squeezed the grapes to make wine, he became intoxicated and he wallowed in his tent, because he could not withstand the great temptation of the Tree.” In the eyes of the Zohar, Noach viewed himself as a “fixer,” a rectifier, of all that was bad and flawed in the world. He was able to rectify the products of Original Sin to some degree, by making the life of man easier, alleviating some degree of the farmer’s “sweat of his brow” (3:19), and mitigating the curse that was placed on the soil when Adam ate from the Tree. What was Noach seeking to rectify by replanting the Tree of Knowledge and trying to eat of it again? We are treading on very deep and esoteric territory, but allow me just a surface view of something that is actually much deeper.

Noach and Nadav and Avihu

The same passage of Zohar which notes that Noach failed, also observes that he was not the only person who tried to rectify Adam’s sin and failed. Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, also tried to use wine as a means of approaching God and rectifying Adam’s sin. According to Rabbinic tradition, they drank wine before entering into the Holy of Holies. But sadly, they, too, failed and that is why they perished, as recorded in Parshat Shemini (Lev. 10:1-2). Adam’s fall was based on the Tree being this very powerful opportunity for reaching some level of spiritual greatness, but also containing some great inherent danger if not used properly. Wine represents this double-edged sword of utilizing a mind-altering drug to expand consciousness. The only problem with this kind of mind-altering drug is that if not used properly, it will have a negative effect. Alcohol has a dual effect, of both acting as a depressant and as a stimulant. It provides a euphoric feeling through releasing dopamine, while at the same time depressing one’s physical senses and creating a feeling of “dissociation.” What Adam was trying to accomplish by eating of the Tree was to somehow “dissociate” himself from his physical confinements in the hope of conjoining with Hashem. He failed because he could not control the by-product of that effort, which is to get trapped in the self-indulgent euphoria of the moment. Both Noach and Aaron’s sons hoped that they could separate the good from the bad. They all tragically failed in this effort.

Attempts at rectifying Original Sin

It is not impossible to rectify Original Sin. But certain things can only be accomplished at the right time and by the right person. The higher the stakes, the more dangerous the effort. As the late comic, Norm MacDonald, described about the sport of cliff-diving, where a diver jumps off a cliff and either parachutes or parasails downward, “There's only two classifications in cliff-diving. There's ‘Grand Champion’ and then, ‘Stuff On a Rock.’” Or, we can refer back to the first part of the quote we started with from Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster.” But was Noach wrong for his attempt? It’s very hard to condemn him for trying to make things better, especially at this particular juncture after the Flood. Perhaps he thought that this was his role. Mankind is being rebuilt, and now that the restart button has been pushed, let’s go back to the original beginning in the Garden. But there’s something more. I’m reminded of a statement made by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi in the Kuzari (5:22), when he was challenged about his plans to make Aliyah with the argument that it was too dangerous. He responded: “If a person has made a reckoning in his soul, is thankful… and satisfied with having lived what he has already lived, and dedicates the rest of his life to the fulfillment of God’s will, then such a person may place himself in danger.” Noach, too, was at a point in his life when he felt that he had already reached the highest plateau possible, and that the only thing left for him was to rectify Original Sin.

Learning from Noach

We should be both cautioned and inspired by Noach’s efforts, even though they ended in failure. We should be cautioned to never fly too close to the flame of life, lest we get burned. But we should also realize that life is all about constant advancement and improvement. You are never too old for a new endeavor. What’s on your bucket list? Start a new chapter in your life and conquer those things you had always hoped to do but then life got in the way. May we all succeed and continuously advance until we reach the final apex of our individual and societal humanity. May we realize this, bb”a.

Learning to Take Responsibility

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin Our holy works discuss a duality of perception: God perceives reality as it truly is, while man perceives a veiled reality, in the way God wishes for him to perceive it. As one gets closer to Divine perception, man’s free will begins to evaporate. According to Rav Yaakov Lainer of Ishbitz, this is the common theme throughout the opening stories of Genesis about people who denied culpability for their crimes. When Hashem accused Adam and Eve of committing a sin, each one denied that they were to blame; Adam said it wasn’t his fault, since the woman that God had provided for him had fed him the fruit. Eve said it wasn’t her fault, since the serpent had convinced her to do it. Early man, this brand new creation, perceived himself as a direct product of Hashem, and had a much closer view of reality as it appears to God, that man has no real autonomy. This is why Adam and Eve denied responsibility, because they didn’t yet perceive themselves as beings of free will, but rather as passive participants, puppets on a string, under God’s orchestration.

Denying responsibility from the start

There appears to be a progression in the stories of early man denying blame. We see three separate episodes of where man is accused of committing cardinal sins and denying responsibility. (1) The first is the sin in the Garden, (2) the second is Cain’s murder of Abel, and (3) the third is about a minor biblical figure, Lemekh, who also committed a form of homicide, as we’ll explain. I believe that these three stories provide us with a map of how man slowly learned to take responsibility for his actions and evolved to see himself as a free-willed being. In the first story, Adam couldn’t fathom how he was to blame, if the very being that Hashem had provided for him was goading him to eat from the fruit. Hashem’s lesson to Adam was something that every child knows to be true: “If your wife told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?” Lesson #1 for early man is that no one in your life other than yourself can compel you to do something that you know to be wrong. In the second story, Cain claimed to be blameless because he committed an act of passion. When he said (4:9), “לֹ֣א יָדַ֔עְתִּי הֲשֹׁמֵ֥ר אָחִ֖י אָנֹֽכִי:” – “I did not know that I was my brother’s keeper,” he did so sincerely. How can I be held responsible for my feelings of anger and jealously? You, God, created me with these emotions that impelled me to kill my brother; why should I be to blame? Lesson #2 for early man is that no matter how impassioned you feel by your emotions, no matter how tumultuous your state of mind, you may not impinge on someone else’s wellbeing. You are ultimately in control, no matter how upset you become. The third story is much more subtle. Firstly, the Torah never indicates what Lemekh’s crime was. All we know from the text is that his two wives, Adah and Tzilah, were not happy with him, and that he had to argue in his own defense that he wasn’t to blame for having killed a person (4:19-24). Secondly, we never find, as we do with Adam and Cain, that God reproached him for his behavior.

Lemech different perspective

I’m fascinated by the approach of the Ramban, who maintains that Lemekh killed no one. Rather, Lemekh was a very wise and inventive person, and, as the text explains, he taught each of his three sons a different skill. He taught his first son, Yaval, the skill of migrant grazing of livestock. He taught his second son, Yuval, the art of music. He taught his third son, Tuval-Cain, the science of metallurgy, which included not only the manufacture of useful farming tools, but also the manufacture of weapons. Lemekh’s wives were upset with him because through his introduction of weapon-making, he was bringing great death and destruction to the world through warfare that would inevitably ensue. Lemekh responded to his wives that he was not to blame for any bloodshed that would be caused by his weapons. He had killed no one, but was only providing tools of violence to others. He reasoned: Look at Cain, who was able to kill his brother without weapons. Surely Cain was guilty, but how could teaching one’s son how to manufacture weapons be compared to Cain’s act of murder? The truth is, Lemekh’s argument continues to be debated in modern society. As the saying goes among gun enthusiasts, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” When used responsibly, guns can even deter violence. Perhaps this is the very reason why the Torah leaves this story open-ended and unresolved. God doesn’t take an open position in the debate between Lemekh and his wives, nor do we note that Lemekh suffered any consequences for his actions.

Weapons and liability

But one thing is clear: the great violence that began to brew within early human society, as recorded at the end of our parsha and the beginning of Parshas Noach, could not have reached such a crescendo without the introduction of weapons that allowed people to kill each other with much greater efficiency. The fact that the Torah records the story indicates that there is some level of liability placed on the weapons maker or dealer. Granted, the gun-maker didn’t pull the trigger, but when society as a whole proliferates weapons widely and idealizes their use, mankind is doomed to go through iterations of violence. The individual should learn from this story that one would be much better off becoming a shepherd or musician than an arms manufacturer. This story is part of the progression in human beings learning to take responsibility for their behavior: First (Adam), man learns that he has autonomy and that no other being can compel someone to do something wrong. Second (Cain), man learns that he must control his impulses and cannot excuse his bad behavior because of his passions. Finally (Lemekh), man learns that although he may not bear personal responsibility for introducing harmful substances to his fellow man, there is some level of communal duty to try and foster a culture of peace and wellbeing for society.

Identify evil, choose good

If it took time for early man to learn how to take responsibility for his behavior, it would appear that today, mankind is regressing, not because we are so close to Hashem’s reality, but rather because we have grown even more distant from the great moral lessons of the Torah. Today, we blame poor choices on sundry inborn and environmental factors; we are told that we cannot pass judgment on anyone. The 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history. Bloodshed and violence continue around the world even in our advanced 21st century. Society is not yet ready to completely eliminate the tools of warfare from our midst, nor is it prepared to pass judgment on the violent perpetrators. And now, we are at war, the bloodiest war that Israel has faced in decades. We are already seeing the malevolent voices condemning Israel and blaming the victims. “We can’t blame Hamas, they’re desperate and we have to allow each culture to express its frustration in the only way it knows how, even if it involves savagely victimizing innocent men, women and children.” “We can’t blame Iran; they only provided the means for Hamas to perpetrate its terror. Like Lemech, they did not pull the trigger.” The small steps begin with each and every one of us. Each of us has a voice with which to protest a social order that offers cover to terrorists. While free will may be an illusion from God’s standpoint, it is quite real in this artificial construct we call life, and it is the cornerstone of every precept that was given to us by God in the Torah. It is why the Torah teaches us about free will so early on in the Torah. Hashem wants us to live within this construct of free will and exercise control over our lives, our emotions, and the actions we perform. He wants us to identify good and evil and choose the good and reject and eliminate the evil. May we choose wisely so that this is the year when war finally comes to an end and we usher in the Redemption, bb”a.

We are So Close

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin We are so close. The Torah assures us that teshuvah and closeness to Hashem is extremely accessible and is something that is completely within our grasp (Deut. 30:11-14). “It’s not in heaven… and it’s not on the other side of the sea… For it is very close to you (“כִּי־קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד”), both in your mouth and in your heart to accomplish.” There is another place where the Torah says that something is “כִּי־קָרוֹב”, close to us. In Parshat Beshalach, in describing the route the Jews took to leave Egypt, the Torah states that God did not allow them to pass through the Philistine territory, “כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא” – “because it was close” to the Egyptian border (Ex. 13:17-18). Hashem was concerned lest the Jews become frightened by the Philistines and turn back to Egypt. Rabbi Yitzchak Yungerleib was a Hassidic Rebbe in the town of Radvil in western Ukraine in the early 19th century. He noted this connection and suggested that a Jew should keep both verses in his heart. On the one hand, spiritual closeness is very much within everyone’s grasp. The Torah is free to all to study and to draw inspiration. At the same time, there are many pitfalls in this life, and it is very easy to get distracted and waylaid by the vicissitudes and allures of the physical world. God Himself is rooting for us, always hoping that we’ll make the right decisions, and not fall into the hands of the “Philistines.” This is why the Torah states, “וְלֹא־נָחָם אֱלֹהִים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים”, which can also be translated as “God is inconsolable (לֹא־נָחָם) when His children go down the Philistine path.” How does Hashem try to divert us from the Philistine path? The next verse in Parshat Beshalach states: “Hashem instead turned the nation toward the desert.” When one feels that sense of humility and loneliness, devoid of ego and arrogance, but rather barren and desolate like a desert, this is a sign that that one is on the right path.

Making ourselves vulnerable

We are approaching these Days of Awe. In order for them to have meaning for us, we ought to make ourselves somewhat vulnerable. We should acknowledge our shortcomings and the fact that we don’t have answers to everything, nor do we completely have our lives together. We should also acknowledge that while teshuvah is very accessible, we often neglect that access, and much to Hashem’s chagrin, choose the Philistine path, which sometimes seems like the more convenient path. I would add that there is something unique about the “כי קרוב” in our text. It doesn’t just say here that our access to Hashem is close; it says “כִּי־קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד” – it is VERY close. While it’s true that we are also at risk of succumbing to the allures of this Philistine world, the Torah testifies that we are even closer and have more access to the truths of the Torah and to the teshuvah process, since they are already “בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ” – in our mouths and hearts. Rabbi Moshe David Valli, a student of the Ramchal, noted that there are many things that are “close.” You can have a neighbor who lives right next door. Our family members are even closer to us than our neighbors. We are even closer to our spouses than other family members. But the closest sense of kinship that we have is with the Divine Presence that is so close, that it rests in our mouths and hearts. There is a constant gnawing within us to seek out the truth and to see past the veneer of this world. The Torah acknowledges that we were all created with that inherent hunger to seek out a close relationship with Hashem.

Small adjustments, minor corrections

Because of its closeness, the teshuvah process is a very small step and we don’t have to travel far outside of our comfort zones. The story is told of Rabbi Yerachmiel of P’shischa (d. 1836), who was once sitting with his students. He related to them that he owned a watch that had stopped working, and none of the watchmakers could figure out what was wrong. He decided to take it apart himself. He removed all the gears, wheels, and switches, and they all seemed perfectly in order. He finally discovered that the tiniest spring in the watch was slightly bent. All that had to be done was to bend it back into position, and all the gears started to move once again. The students understood that their rebbe was alluding to them that sometimes, our internal springs are bent out of shape. Instead of having to replace all the parts, it’s sometimes the tiniest little adjustment that must be made in our lives to fix everything else that isn’t working. Because the solution is so close, all it sometimes takes is a small correction to our hearts to bring us back into alignment with our Yiddishkeit, our fellow man, and our God.

The call of the shofar

There is something else that is described as “כִּי קָרוֹב” in the books of the Prophets. In the book of Yoel (2:1), the prophet proclaims: תִּקְעוּ שׁוֹפָר בְּצִיּוֹן וְהָרִיעוּ בְּהַר קָדְשִׁי יִרְגְּזוּ כֹּל יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ כִּי־בָא יוֹם־יְקֹוָק כִּי קָרוֹב Blow the Shofar in Zion, blast the noise in My holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the Land be frightened, for the day of Hashem is coming near (“כִּי קָרוֹב”). This is echoed in other verses, such as an Obadiah 1:15, that the day of Hashem is near, when Hashem will take His revenge on our oppressors and bring the Redemption. As we prepare for the Shofar blasts of Rosh Hashanah, let’s recall that the “Day of the Lord” is coming, and what a great and awesome day it shall be. May our Shofar blasts this year bring us to the ultimate “Day of the Lord” at the time of our Redemption, bb”a. Wishing you all a ketivah v’chatimah tovah, a joyous and blessed new year.