Good morning rabosai, I hope everyone is well. Haderech hashishi. Haderech hashishi: כל עת יכון לקראת אלוהיו. A person should always be prepared, as it were, to encounter Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The idiom likras Elokim so you find by Matan Torah, that Klal Yisrael goes likras Elokim. כי לא ידע האדם את עתו. No one knows how long his lifespan is going to be. Al kein, kelyosav yishtonen. Yishtonen, I think, is lashon we have in Pesukei D'Zimra: Avdu eshtonosav. And the kelyos, the kidneys, are associated with thought. So it means that a person should be thinking, he should be reflecting. U'vitzdaka yikonen. The Gemara in Kesubos tells the story, I forget which of the Amora'im, is it Mar Zutra, who before his petira gave a tremendous amount to tzedaka? There's the zchus of tzedaka is very special and very unique. ולהשיב רוחו בטהרה אל אלהים אשר נתנה ויחפש דרכיו ומעלליו בכל יום. יפקדם לבקרים ולרגעים יבחנם.
A person should engage in daily cheshbon hanefesh. ואמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה רבי אליעזר אומר שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך אמרו לו תלמידיו רבנו וכי אדם יודע באיזה יום ימות אמר להם כל שכן ישוב היום שמא ימות למחר ונמצא כל ימיו בתשובה.
So there's so much in this one short paragraph, maybe for this morning just we'll try bli neder just to focus on one idea. This idea that a person is supposed to live with the chashash shema yamus l'machar. So what does that mean? Obviously, it's not something that is supposed to exclusively dominate a person's consciousness. There's so much of what we do that is totally nonsensical, things that we would not be doing יום אחד לפני מיתתנו. And yet obviously we're supposed to be doing those things. So in what context is one supposed to be guided by this shema yamus l'machar and in what context is a person supposed to have a life plan? לעולם ילמד אדם תורה ואחר כך ילמד אומנות ואחר כך ישא אשה.
A person is supposed to, Chazal say, a person is supposed to have a long-term plan. A person is supposed to not take it for granted, but a person is supposed to hope that Ribono Shel Olam is going to be blessing him with a normal and halevai long lifespan. So what's the balance? When is that the guiding principle that a person is supposed to have a long-term plan and a person is supposed to be making plans and laying the foundation for the future? And where do we say shema yamus l'machar? So part of it lachora is as follows. I don't know that this is all of it, but maybe one element for today rabosai. The mechayev of teshuva which Rabbeinu Yonah introduces us to, which Rabbeinu Yonah introduces us back in the beginning of Sha'ar Rishon, is when a person is aware of cheit. When I'm aware of cheit, that's mechayev me to do teshuva, and again Rabbeinu Yonah, unlike the Rambam, thinks that basically a person has to do teshuva right away. So what are we talking about here Haderech Hashishi? What's... he's got to do shema yamut lemachar, even if yavo le'yavei yoma, that the person's gonna live to a ripe old age, if he knows cheit, then he has to. So clearly what it means is that again, we spoke about this just yesterday in talking about the uniqueness of the chiyuv teshuvah on Yom Kippur, which is that Rabbeinu Yonah is talking about יחפש דרכיו ומעלליו יפקדם ויבחנם. It means to proactively make a cheshbon hanefesh, not just to sort of in a passive way when I become aware of cheit to do teshuvah, but a person should actively be looking to see, okay, what are my chesronos, how can I improve? Now lema'aseh, something like that isn't something that a person accomplishes in a day. And one could have said, this is something I want to do at some point, right? Let's say people have, I don't know, milei d'alma, people have a to-do list of things they want to do before they die: they want to travel the world, they want to visit every state in the United States, they want to go to every Chinese restaurant east of the Mississippi; I don't know, people have lots of important things that they want to accomplish in life. Okay, so lehavdil, spiritually, there's also things that we want to accomplish. One of those things is that clearly, if we were to be asked, if someone were to pose the following question to us: do you think it's enough to just react, to just be reactive and to react when you're aware of cheit, or do you think you should be making a cheshbon hanefesh at some point? So of course we would say, at some point I should be making a cheshbon hanefesh, I shouldn't just be reactive but I should be proactive in terms of my bettering myself, improving myself, correcting flaws, not just reactive when, oh, I... So when there's something that is on a person's agenda spiritually in the realm of teshuvah to do between now and the time he dies, that's where there's a din that a person should say shema yamut lemachar. Sometime between now, a person would tell himself, sometime between now and rachmana litzlan, the time I may die, so yes, I want to make a really, really comprehensive, exhaustive cheshbon hanefesh. And I really, really want to identify if there's any chata'im I've overlooked, if there's any people I've wronged; I really, really want to do that. That's definitely on my spiritual to-do list. There's a din of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך, because the same way I can be madcheh it from today until tomorrow, that rationale will always be valid. And who's to say that the person's gonna have the zechus to reach the age where he'll begin to wonder whether or not the rationale is valid anymore? So that's where there's a din of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך, when my focus isn't today, my focus is there's something I want to accomplish. And obviously we want to learn kol hatorah kula before we die; that doesn't mean that we can learn kol hatorah kula today, right? So we're talking about, let's say, in the realm of teshuvah in terms of what's nitpas in being done today. But that's where there's a din of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך, and that's why it again, it's totally, it coexists harmoniously with the general modus operandi that we have, that we do ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה ואם בגבורות שמונים שנה, that we do look forward to the future. And that's the answer, because otherwise it's very difficult to say. In halacha, we don't assume that a young person—there's a chashash that a young person is going to die. So there's a din halacha lema'aseh like this: let's say you have a woman, she's married to a kohen. And the kohen goes limedinas hayam. Okay, this is before, before email, before forms of communication. So she's got no way to be in touch with him. He's going off to find his fortune, so he's going limedinas hayam and he's gonna, you know, he leaves after the 10th anniversary, tells her he hopes to be back in time for the 20th anniversary, Shkoy. Okay. So what, mah, so what, what's the halacha during those years? So she's allowed to eat truma. Ay, maybe he died? No, there's no reason to assume that a young person, that even a middle-aged person, there's no reason to assume that that maybe he died. So and yet here we say shema yamus lemachar. What's the answer? The answer is again because there we're not talking about what she wants to accomplish in life. We're not talking about here in Chodesh Cheshvan. Do I have reason to think my husband is no longer alive? No, you have no reason to think he's no longer alive. He's not, he's not so old and he's in good health. You have no reason to think he's not alive because when the focal focus is today do I have to assume that maybe he just died? Do I assume maybe he's gonna die tomorrow? No, you don't have to. But when the frame of reference is one's lifetime and there's something I want to get done, something I need to get done, so then I could always be madcheh to tomorrow. I could always be madcheh, the pro-activeness of cheshbon hanefesh, I could always be madcheh that until tomorrow. I could always postpone that tomorrow. That's where there's a notion of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך. Okay, we'll stop here for now. Okay, בלי נדר אם ירצה השם we'll resume around 12:45 b'ezras Hashem. So we'll begin, I think, with the, I think we said with the Baal HaMaor and the Ramban in Rosh Hashanah about our gemara in Sukkah and then hopefully go on to see the next gemara about bedika l'ohr haner. Okay, b'ezras Hashem, have a good productive morning. Everyone should be well, be safe, im yirtzeh Hashem.