Hopefully we'll only be for for a day or two b'ezrat Hashem. We were going to look very briefly at Michtav Tzad-Tes and then at a little more length at Michtav Kuf this morning. Are you able to hear? Is it audible? Yeah. Yeah, okay, okay, thank you. So Michtav Tzad-Tes. ואפרוש תודה עבור מכתבך היקר האמת ניתנה להיאמר כי נהניתי ממנו עד מאוד טוב רחב וחידושי תורה ששמת במכתבך מעידים הם על נפשך הזכה.
Your chidushay Torah attest to your pure heart, your pure soul, השתולה על מעיינה של תורה hash'tulah b'veit Hashem which is planted on the springs of Torah v'asher al ken and therefore also התענוג שנפשך מוצא בדברי תורה. That enjoyment that your soul finds in divrei Torah אינך מוצא לה תמורה ותחליף. You can't find any substitute or equivalent for it בכל העסקים שלך בהוויות העולם. As long as a person constantly and consistently exposes himself to divrei Torah, so then he realizes that it's irreplaceable within his life. He realizes that he can't have contentment or fulfillment without it. If a person rachmana litzlan is misrashel, so then once he forgets that experience, so then rachmana litzlan, he can adjust to a different reality. חזק ואמץ חביבי ושים לבך על דרכך להינצל מבזבוז זמן לבטלה.
Perhaps here I think the Alter is putting his finger on one of the central challenges to continuing to maximize one's opportunities and to continue to grow in learning even when one is outside of the framework of a yeshiva. As long as a person is within the framework of the yeshiva, so to a significant degree, using one's time just means, just in quotation marks, just means conscientiously observing the external structure which the yeshiva provides. The yeshiva designates what time the sedarim are and what time and what time shiur is. And a person needs, as one says nowadays, needs to shtel tzu. But again, not to understate the need for discipline in that as well, but relatively speaking, it's easier. When a person is outside of the misgeres of the yeshiva, so there isn't necessarily a misgeres, there isn't necessarily a framework that if only he complies with it, if only he operates within it, he'll be using his time, he'll be making the most of the time. And that's a central element of avodah that a person should create for himself that structure and a person should look to develop that discipline to use his time and to make the most of his time. שים לבך על דרכך להינצל מבזבוז זמן לבטלה. Obviously, using one's time fully doesn't necessarily mean that a person is learning 24/7. A person needs to spend time on whatever he needs for his physical health, whatever he needs for his emotional health, part of which is relaxation and connecting with other people. A person has to deal with whatever other obligation. He doesn't mean, and this doesn't translate into the fact that the person is learning 24/7, but what it means is that there isn't stam wasted time. There isn't stam wasted time, and that's a central challenge and the key element of one's avoda once one is outside of the misgeres of the Yeshiva. Hiskasher ba'avosous ahava, be bound up, be tied up in the cords of love של סדרים חזקים בקביעות עיתים. Again, that idea of creating that structure, of knowing that there's a chavrusa, of knowing that there's someone or something waiting at fill in the blank at whatever hour or whatever hours קביעות עיתים לתורה למען ייטב לך בזה ובבא. Okay, let's take a look a little bit rabosai simply at the next letter. Next letter's interesting, it's very different than the previous letters in the sense that he's not writing to a talmid, he's clearly writing to a ba'al teshuvah whom he doesn't know, but who turned to him with a letter. Sorry, excuse me one second. הנני בזה לאשר קבלת מכתבך מיום י"ח אדר תשט"ו. So I hereby confirm, acknowledge receipt of your letter. Alright, it was written a week earlier. Memaher ani biteshuva כי יקרה לי מאוד הרגעת רוח סוער של נפש מישראל.
I'm putting this, responding on the fast track, because to calm a tempestuous spirit of a Jewish soul is something which is especially precious to me. Michtavecha hi ispaklarya אשר מתוכה נשקפים נפתולי חיים, the struggles of life shel nefesh oreges of a soul that yearns. Tzar li, I'm distressed over the fact כי אין בידי לענות על שאלותיך בפירוט. I can't answer your questions with specificity. Halo yoda'at at, you surely know כי בשעה שבן אדם נוסע על היבשה, here comes another gevaldige moshal. Well, when a person is traveling on the land, הרי מרכבתו עושה חריץ בקרקע, his chariot makes grooves in the ground, ועל ידי זה נוצר שביל גם לחברו, and thereby he creates a path for his friend who follows him. אבל בזמן שאדם נוסע על הים, but when the person is traveling on the ocean, הרי אפילו אם מאה שנים יימצא באנייה, he may be there for a hundred years, לא יתהווה מזה דרך כבושה גם לזולת. There won't be any trodden path created for someone else. Lamoter leva'er lach כי חיי הנוער שלנו בתקופה זו, that the life of our youth in this era, again, the date as you see is 1955, so kal vachomer batkufasenu, some 60 plus years later. כי חיי הנוער שלנו בתקופה זו דומים הם הרבה יותר לתנועת האנייה בלב ים סוער,
that the far more than it resembles the movement of a chariot on the ground. ואל כן אי אפשר בשום אופן בזמננו because of that it's impossible in our day l'ya-eitz to advise ובהוראות בהליכת עולמו של אדם צעיר me'anshei shlomeinu על יסוד השוואות ודימויים. A person can't give guidance, a person can't give advice based on comparisons and extrapolations ולדרוש סמוכים מנפש אחת לחברתה. Well, I I know someone else who's your age and such and such an eitza was helpful for him for her. It has to be very much individualized. Again, it doesn't mean that within the individualization that that the experience that the person has with others won't help him understand, but you can't assume that there's a that there's a uniform path or derech or or guidance that's going to be effective. It has to be very, very much personalized and individualized. V'al kein, mikeivan she-eineini makir'cha, since I don't know you, יש כאן חשש של עצה שאינה הוגנת. I'll be guessing if I try to give you an eitza and there's concern that I'd be over a lav of לפני עיוור לא תיתן מכשול of of giving an inappropriate advice. וחלילה לי להורות ולייעץ כגון זה. Chas v'shalom that that given that concern that I should offer advice. אבל אחת אני יכול להבטיחך. But one thing I can tell you, one thing is is I know to be true and I can guarantee you even without knowing you just based on this single correspondence. כי אם תשתמש כהוגן בכשרונותיך ובכוחותיך, if you'll properly make use of your abilities and and and your energies and your kochos hanefesh as they were apparent to me through your writing, ki az, then ויהפכו כל הפגמים והליקויים של חינוכך בעבר that you're complaining so much about, az yihapchu, then they will be converted into, they will be transformed into l'machshir rav bracha an instrument which contains within it much bracha of hashpa'ah al hazulas in the desired direction b'kivun haratzui for people in our camp. הנני נותן לך בזה רשות לפנות אלי בכל זמן שתמצאי לנכון ופטורה את מלהסס בדבר.
You don't have to hesitate in in contacting me again. בתקווה כי יעזור לך השם להיות מודרכת במסילה העולה בית אל. הנני חותם בברכת החג.
It's שלושה ימים קודם חג המצות when he's writing the letter. There's a very very big yesod here. The yesod is actually much broader than its specific application or the way it's formulated within this letter. We're all familiar with the Gemara in Yoma that if a person does teshuva me'ahava so then זדונות נעשו לו כזכויות. Somehow or other, when a person does, if a person is zocher to teshuva me'ahava, so then aveiros that were committed willfully where he was meizid are converted into zchuyos. However... what what the dynamic for that is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu provides. But what would that Gemara attest to is that becoming a Ba'al Teshuvah, doing Teshuvah doesn't mean breaking with one's past. It doesn't mean imagining that for all as it were practical spiritual purposes one was born the the day that that one was enlightened by Or shel Torah and that all one's previous life and and experience is ke'ilu lo hayu. Were that the case with that what what doing Teshuvah ideally meant? If if what what it's true that on one level obviously it's a new beginning and a fresh start and and and opening a new chapter in life. But there's a difference between opening a new chapter in life, a new beginning, as as opposed to totally, totally burying what one's past. And that's what Rav Hutner is telling her that that your attitude towards your past the the sort of the resentment that that clearly and and frustration that that spilled over is is wrong. Because through the process of Teshuvah a person not only redeems himself or herself, he also redeems his or her past and and again whatever the dynamic whatever Hakadosh Baruch Hu's dynamic is that that he provides us for zadonos na'asos kiskechuyos, it means that the past isn't buried but the past is is is redeemed. I wonder if if this didn't underline one of two pieces of of advice that I once heard that Rav zichrono livracha give. Also interestingly it was to a young woman. I don't know that there was anything gender specific about the advice, I think the same advice would have been given to to a young man. And and he gave her two pieces of advice. He told her again she was she was on the way, she wasn't there yet. She was on the way. So one piece of the first piece of advice he gave her was to go slowly, not to push herself too fast. The mashal, again, he this is not his mashal, so so not to not to make him responsible for for the for the mashal. The mashal, let's say when you have a rubber band. If you want to stretch the rubber band to its maximum, if you want to really capitalize on all its elasticity, you have to gradually stretch it, you have to tease it out gradually. If you stretch it too quickly, too abruptly, it just snaps. Change has to be made gradually. Okay, so that's the Perush Rashi. But in case the Perush Rashi is wrong, just to review what was actually said is don't go too fast, go slowly, go slowly is what was said, go slowly. B, the second piece of advice he gave her was don't be resentful towards your parents. Lich'ora the pshat in, again, ad kan devarav, mikan va'eilach is is perush. Lich'ora the pshat in that is is twofold. Number one what we're talking about. That if a person is resentful about one's past, about one's upbringing, so then the the only mechanism that he'll, he or she will will have available in doing Teshuvah is to, you know, sort of imagine that, you know, he or she was born 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, however many years later than than what it says on the on the birth certificate. And again while that is true True on one level, but it's also supposed to not be true on another level. The other thing is the aveirah lechora reason for why that attitude is also harmful. The first one is more why that attitude is wrong, because teshuvah redeems the past, it doesn't bury the past. The other the other perspective on that piece of advice, again, not only that it's wrong but it's also harmful. A foundation of anger and resentment and frustration about one's upbringing doesn't serve as a as a foundation for for teshuvah or for avodas Hashem. The foundation has to be positive, not not not negative. Just rewinding for a minute to to the first perspective again, perspective that Rav Hutner is also talking about in this letter about not burying the past but but redeeming the past. So he gives one example in terms of how the experiences that a person had can position him or her to be mekarev acherim. And it's interesting, you know, some of the leading figures in today in in in kiruv rechokim are people who themselves came from a non-religious background. But it's it's not only in terms of klapei chutz that those experiences can be redeemed. Just to give one example, and again, I don't mean this also as as in a constricting or confining sense that this is the only way it it can be done, but just to illustrate again how the past is transformed, is redeemed, not not buried and that's what the goal of of teshuvah is. I think what we've had occasion in another context to talk about the the yesod that the Rambam has, such a profound yesod where the Rambam says that the Torah wants that we should always be mehatov remember yemei hara. And and where this is most, I don't know, most, but but one of the places where this is really expressed in the Torah is in the mitzvah of mikra bikkurim. Mitzvah of mikra bikkurim is to basically thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu for the fact that we have that we're in Eretz Yisrael and and and we had such a successful crop and and that the harvest yielded so much. So what you would think the person bringing bikkurim should say to the kohen, I thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu that I live in Eretz Yisrael and that I had a successful crop. But what's the mitzvah mitzvah of bikkurim? He begins, he begins reminiscing. Not only does he begin reminiscing about his own childhood, he goes back to his great-great-great-grandfather. He goes back to arami oved avi that Lavan בקש לעקור את הכל. And he goes back to avdus mitzrayim. So what's the what's this seemingly long-winded discourse? So the Rambam explains no, because the Torah says that a person needs to remember yemei hara in yemei hatova. Why? Because by remembering yemei hara in yemei hatova it accomplishes two things. A, it increases greatly the sense of hoda'ah that a person has for Hakadosh Baruch Hu for the present tova. When the when the bar, when the frame of reference is the yemei hara that a person either individually or that we nationally collectively experienced, so then there's obviously much greater hoda'ah, there's a much greater element of hoda'ah for the tova. That's number one. And then number two, the Rambam says it instills anavah. That there's always a hashash that tova can a person can allow tova to corrupt himself. Pen tochal vesavata, ובתים טובים תבנה וישבת and then the Torah says be'hemshech hapesukim in parshas Eikev that rachmana litzlan ורם לבבך ושכחת את השם אלקיך. The antidote to to that, the way. The way that to to prevent ourselves from allowing tova to be mekalkel us is biyamei hatova to remember yemei hara'a. You know, in a certain way, the hoda'ah, the appreciation, and we see this bemuchash sometimes, we see bemuchash that people who are ba'alei teshuvah have a greater appreciation and feel a greater sense of blessing for the tova of Torah than people who aren't, or at least don't think of themselves as ba'alei teshuvah. Sometimes when you see that there's, you know, one person who's not taking the express train during Shacharis and davening ווי אזוי עס דארף צו זיין the way it's supposed to be, so it's not uncommon that it turns out that that person is someone who's a ba'al teshuvah. There's a greater sense of appreciation. That's just another example, again, just like what Rav Hutner is giving as an example, but the yesod again can translate or can manifest in many ways, but it's a very big yesod that yes, it's a new beginning, yes, it's a new chapter, but it's not a new book. And a person doesn't look to bury his past, a person looks to redeem and and transform his past. And in that sense, you know, the term ba'al teshuvah, you know, should be understood not as it's used colloquially, you know, for someone who grew up in a home where there was no Shabbos and no Kashrus. It should be used the way in its more correct halachic sense of the word. The change, the difference doesn't have to be as dramatic as chillul Shabbos to shemiras Shabbos for a person to be a ba'al teshuvah and for all these ideas and for this yesod to be relevant. Okay, so we'll stop here for today.