Hi good morning rabosai. I think we maybe had occasion to mention in Elul the famous Maharsha in Masechet Megilla when the Braisa has the din that Moshe tikun lahem l'Yisrael that שיהיו שואלים ודורשים בענינו של יום, Hilchos Pesach b'Pesach, Hilchos Chag b'Chag. So it doesn't mention Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur have the special Hilchos ha-yom, the Hilchos shofar on Rosh Hashana, the Hilchos of the chamisha inuyim on Yom Kippur, avodas Yom Kippur. So why is it that the Braisa only talks about Hilchos Pesach b'Pesach, Hilchos Chag b'Chag? So the Maharsha answers very famously, he says because Chazal were afraid of being misunderstood. They were afraid that if they said that there's an inyan to learn the Hilchos which pertain to Rosh Hashana on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur on Yom Kippur, we might mistakenly include within that Hilchos teshuvah. And we might mistakenly think the same way the Hilchos of chametz and matzah pertain but are also basically limited to Pesach and how Hilchos Sukkah and daled minim pertain to but are limited to Sukkos, so so too we might have erroneously thought that Hilchos teshuvah pertain to and are limited to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, a person has to be preoccupied with teshuvah, and the rest of the year it's not omed al haperek. And the Maharsha says but that's obviously not the case. Chiyuv teshuvah is something that is a perennial obligation, a perennial focus. So in that vein let's continue here in the Sha'ar Sheni in Sha'arei Teshuvah. We, I think we're in the middle of os tes. The Rabbeinu Yonah is elaborating upon the different decades of a person's life, the different stages of a person's life as delineated by the Mishnah in Avos. I think we were up to the lines, u'ba-hagio l'yemei ha-seiva, when a person reaches age seventy, יוסיף לגרש מלבו ענין העולם ולפי מיעוט השנים הבאות ימעיט בעסק העולם ויתייחד תמיד להתבונן ביראת השם ולחשוב בנפשו ולתקן מדותיו ולבקש תורה ומצות.
The mashal l'chora is as follows. Let's say you have two undergraduates. One of them is in his first week of college, and the other one is somewhere in the spring semester of his senior year. So they're both undergraduates, but certainly their focus is going to be very different. The one who's in the first week of his college career, so he's thinking, he's planning his college career and he's understandably and appropriately preoccupied with how to spend those years. What classes am I going to take and what extracurriculars am I going to be involved with and what am I going to get involved with in terms of campus life, v'chulu. But if the person who's a week away from graduation, or graduation is somuch v'nir'eh would be similarly preoccupied, so we would think that that was very foolish and very, very shortsighted. We would expect him to be thinking about the next stage in life, about the post, even though right now he's still in college just like the other one, but we would expect him to be focused on the next stage of life. But we would expect him to be focused on the next stage of life. What is Velachshov Benafsho? The phrase Rabbenu Yonah's phrase Velachshov Benafsho, and so presumably he's paraphrasing the phrase that we find in Chumash of Vechishav Im Koneihu. Vechishav Im Koneihu means to calculate what the buy-back price should be. It means to make a reckoning with, to make an accounting with. The balance between a person's focus on guf and nefesh, a person is always supposed to maintain the balance, but what the correct balance is changes depending upon a person's age and stage of life. Uletaken Midotav. There are external acquisitions and then there are internal acquisitions. The money that a person has in various bank accounts, his social standing, those are all external acquisitions. Which is why as David Hamelech says in Tehillim, אל תירא כי יעשר איש כי ירבה כבוד ביתו כי לא במותו יקח הכל לא ירד אחריו כבודו.
Those are external acquisitions. משל למה הדבר דומה. I think at one point, maybe the law's still this way, I don't know, but at one point in South Africa, if you wanted to leave the country, they wouldn't let you take your money out. You couldn't bederech hamelech take your money out. When you relocate, you had to leave your money behind. So what are internal, intrinsic acquisitions that wherever the person goes, in whatever tzura the person exists, he takes with him? So there are two acquisitions. One is the tikun hamidot and the other is chochmah. Those are internal, intrinsic acquisitions. When young people your age learn this section of Shaarei Teshuva, so what's the mindset? Something to be aware of, to sort of file away for 50 years from now? So to a degree the answer is yes. It's not intended to be implemented in the fullest sense in the way Rabbenu Yonah is. is sketching until that stage. So on one level the answer is yes. It's to be filed away. But on another level, it's immediately relevant, immediately applicable, and immediately actionable. The distinction between an internal, intrinsic acquisition and an external acquisition is one that should inform and guide and shape a person's life at every age. The application can't be entirely the same, shouldn't be entirely the same. But that distinction of what a person, again, what's an intrinsic, internal accomplishment, acquisition that endures and what's external, extrinsic, is a criterion, is a distinction that should inform decisions in life. It should help set goals and aspirations in life. And in that sense, hagam that literally Rabbeinu Yonah is giving guidance to people at a very different stage of life, he's giving guidance to people at all stages of life. Okay, and maybe we'll stop here for now, bli neder, im yirtzeh Hashem, we'll resume at 12:30 with the sugya of hamotzei chametz bevaito. Have a good productive morning, rabbosai, be well, be safe.