Good morning, Gut Voch, and Mevorach. I hope you're all well. Picking up this morning with letter Kof-Mem. יקרת מכתבו הגיענו לנוחם. Your precious letter reached me. מדייק אני בלשוני משתמש בביטוי יקר דווקא. I don't mean that as a stam amelitza but I use the word very precisely. מפני שכל דברי תוכחה היוצאים מלב נאמן יקרים הם אצלי מאוד.
All words of rebuke which emanate from a faithful heart are very precious. ועל כן מפני דברי התוכחה הנמצא במכתבו and therefore because of the words of rebuke present, again writing to his correspondent in the third person in his letter, השתמשתי בתיבת יקרת בתור שם תואר מכתבו as a description for your letter. ולראיה על חביבות דברי תוכחתו אצלי אגיד לו כי שניתי ושילשתי ושרשתי דברי התוכחה שלו.
I read it a second and third time. Vehinei mikubalni I've received a tradition כי אהבת התוכחה כוללת לפעמים בתוכה גם את מניעת ההתנצלות.
One way that that love of appreciation for tochacha expresses itself is that the person on the receiving end of the tochacha will not engage in any attempt to justify himself or his behavior אפילו במקום שיש התנצלות. Even if there is room for legitimate self-justification. The the idea expressed here is is really crucial in our avodas Hashem and it requires tremendous avoda for most of us. There are, I don't know, maybe maybe there are some yichidim for whom it's not as big an an avoda but I think for most of us it's a very big avoda to view tochacha. Our natural instinctive reaction is is usually to view tochacha as a type of an attack and then m'meila when attacked the natural instinctive reaction is to try to ward off that attack to engage in in self-defense and thus to try to rebut the tochacha. Really the the attitude we should try to cultivate for our own good l'shem shamayim that the type of attitude that we should try to cultivate vis-a-vis tochacha is that tochacha represents tochacha represents hadracha. It represents an opportunity to recognize one's own shortcomings, one's own faults, one's own inadequacies, inadequacies. You know, as as the darshanim say, the in actually me'inyana deyoma it was yesterday's krias hatorah. So the din is כל הנגעים אדם רואה חוץ מנגעי עצמו. The kohen a kohen can adjudicate any and all nega'im except for his own nega'im. He can't look at at his own nega'im and pasken on his own nega'im. So the darshanim all explain that that also has metaphorical relevance. Nega in the metaphorical sense of a shortcoming of a mida ra'ah. So we easily sometimes too easily recognize nega'im in other people and we easily sometimes too easily can diagnose. There is a vort quoted from the בעל שם טוב הקדוש. Ba'al Shem Tov says what's the hashgacha pratis if I see before me, I see an incident where someone is acting with a middah ra'ah. Someone is displaying a middah ra'ah. Says the Ba'al Shem Tov, HaKadosh Baruch Hu orchestrated that. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave me that opportunity that I should have my attention drawn to that chisaron, to that middah ra'ah, to that inadequacy because that exists within me. But again, כל הנגעים אדם רואה חוץ מנגעי עצמו. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to—what's within me, HaKadosh Baruch Hu projects onto some external canvas for me so that I'll be able to see it and discern it. But the message when I see someone who's acting inappropriately, who's displaying a middah ra'ah, often the message there is to look inward and to identify where and to what degree that middah exists within me. Tochacha helps us compensate for that shortcoming of כל הנגעים אדם רואה חוץ מנגעי עצמו. When someone gives me tochacha, it means that maybe I have a blind spot and this person is helping me compensate for that blind spot. That's what Rabbi Hutner says, that a person should love tochacha. The Rambam writes in Perek Daled of Hilchos Teshuva when he quotes the Baraisa that the Rif in Yoma quotes about עשרים וארבעה דברים המעכבים את התשובה. There are twenty-four things that impair teshuva. Twenty-four things that make the avodah of teshuva more difficult and more challenging for a person. Of those twenty-four, one of them is והשונא את התוכחות שהרי לא הניח לו דרך תשובה שהתוכחה גורמת לתשובה. שבזמן שמודיעים לו לאדם חטאיו ומכלימים אותו חוזר בתשובה. כמו שכתוב בתורה זכור אל תשכח.
Mamrim hayisatem ולא נתן השם לכם לב ועם נבל ולא חכם וכן ישעיהו הוכיח את ישראל ואמר הוי גוי חוטא.
Yada shor konehu. מדעתי כי קשה אתה וכן ציווה הא-ל להוכיח לחטאים שנאמר קרא בגרון אל תחשוך וכן כל הנביאים הוכיחו לישראל עד שחזרו בתשובה.
Let's pay extra attention to this next line, rabosai: לפיכך צריך להעמיד בכל קהל וקהל מישראל חכם גדול וזקן וירא שמיים מנעוריו ואוהב להם שיהיה מוכיח לרבים ומחזירן בתשובה. וזה ששונא את התוכחות אינו בא למוכיח ולא שומע דבריו לפיכך יעמוד בחטאותיו שהן בעיניו טובים.
The Rambam, one of the qualities for a mochiach, one of the conditions for tochacha to be likely to have the best chance of reaching its mark is that the person who's mochiach is ohev lahem. A person has to, when the occasion is right to try to be mekayeim the mitzvah of hochei'ach tochi'ach, when we try to help each other out by sharing tochacha, the tochacha is much more likely to succeed, to accomplish, to be received. the right way and acted upon if the person receiving the tochacha knows and senses that the tochacha is given with ahava. When the tochacha comes across as just being harsh and and cold, so then that triggers our natural defense mechanisms and that natural impulse to erroneously view tochacha as as an attack. When we feel, when we sense, when we know that the tochacha is coming from a heart full of love, when it's coming from a person who's ohev lahem, so then hopefully that will disable that defense mechanism or at least not allow it to inappropriately activate, become activated, and to let us accept the tochacha for what it is. And that's what Rav Hutner says, that if tochacha is an attack, so if there's room to defend oneself, you defend yourself. If a person is being, if a person's in court and he's being accused, so you you wage the best defense you can. But if tochacha is is a growth opportunity, so then a person welcomes tochacha and even if he could deflect the tochacha, why would a person want to deflect divrei hadracha and divrei hisorerus and divrei mussar? There's a story about when when the Sfas Emes was was young, I don't know exactly what age, so one one day, one night he varied from his, the Sfas Emes was was a yasom and was being raised by his grandfather, Chiddushei HaRim, whom he ultimately succeeded as as a young man in in his low twenties. So one one day, one night, the Sfas Emes varied from his usual schedule and instead of however many hours he used to sleep at night, for whatever reason, he learned straight through the night, and having done so, so he went to daven vasikin, and he wasn't at his usual minyan, the minyan that he had a keviyas for. When the Chiddushei HaRim saw that the Sfas Emes wasn't at at that minyan, so he he assumed, understandably, that that the Sfas Emes had been on otherwise had been on his usual schedule and it meant that maybe he had overslept and and there was a little bit of a lack of of zerizus and יתגבר כארי לעבודת הבורא. So he, so he, he gave him, he gave him mussar, gave him divrei tochacha. Someone who was aware of that saw how the Sfas Emes listened and was mekabel everything that the Chiddushei HaRim said. And he didn't, he didn't say anything, he didn't tell the Chiddushei HaRim what the background and what the, what really had been going on and why he hadn't been at his regular minyan. And afterwards this person asked the Sfas Emes, why didn't why didn't you tell him, why didn't you tell your zeide what really happened? So the Sfas Emes said, what, and lose a chance to hear mussar from the zeide? That that's what Rav Hutner's talking about that כי אהבת התוכחה כוללת לפעמים בתוכה גם את מניעת ההתנצלות אפילו במקום שיש התנצלות.
I don't know if and it's hard to know, you know, everyone, you know, is born and and lives at at his particular point in in history and and it's sometimes hard to be sure that one has an accurate sense for what things were like at earlier points and at earlier tekufos in history, but kemedumeh that that the avoda of being mekabel tochacha, of of not being nichshal, rachmana litzlan, in being sonei es hatochacha, that besides whatever sort of individual personal dynamic there is, begadol is is a more difficult avoda for us than than it was in in earlier tekufos. The society in which we live, the Western society in which we live, its stress on individualism and on personal autonomy is such that it rejects vigorously and vehemently tochacha. Like, who are you to encroach upon my personal autonomy, upon my individualism, by telling me what's right and what isn't right, by telling me how I should act? The only, and even there as time goes on, this also erodes, the only area in which there's a little room in our society for tochacha is with children. It's still understood that parenting involves some degree, it's still understood that it involves some degree of setting of limits and some degree of discipline, but as time goes on, even that increasingly erodes. And it's just so antithetical of what the mindset of a ben Torah is supposed to be. And we should be aware sort of of that handicap that we have, not because that should derail us from our efforts, but on the contrary, to recognize that maybe we need to double and redouble our efforts in this, in this area. Okay, so we'll stop here for this element and I hope there's a slight chance that not but most probably bli neder im yirtza Hashem we'll resume again as per our usual Sunday schedule at 12 o'clock bli neder im yirtza Hashem again with going further, I think where is it Daf Kuf that we're holding in terms of בריה חתיכה הראויה להתכבד with the Tosfos or Tosfos in al hadaf. Okay, Rabbosai have a good productive morning. Be well, be safe. Kol tuv. Everybody's, everything else, thanks. Thank you.