Transcript

ויקחו לי תרומה מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו תקחו את תרומתי.

So the simple pshat in the pasuk of course says מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו that the collection was a voluntary one, right? Rashi: בשלוש תרומות הכתוב מדבר that unlike other terumos for the for the adanim for the korbanos tzibbur which were mandatory, so the collection for the mishkan was מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו if a person was moved to contribute. There is a vort from the בעל שם טוב הקדוש that he interprets that on a another level that the pasuk should be understood ויקחו לי תרומה מאת כל איש, they should accept the terumah from everyone and what should be accepted, what is it that a person has to give to create a mishkan? Asher yidvenu libo. A person that asher yidvenu libo is not a description of the person, of the donor, but rather of the donation. Asher yidvenu libo, a person has to be willing to give to the Ribbono Shel Olam that which his heart most wants, that which his heart values the most, a person has to be ready to contribute that to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in order to build a mishkan. Similar idea you have from other gedolim as well. I think it's in the biography of the Chofetz Chaim where it says that the Chofetz Chaim explains the pasuk in Krias Shema:

ואהבת את ה' אלקיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך.

So what does it mean bechol me'odecha? So Rashi says bechol mamonecha. How does Rashi come to that? So Rashi's not suggesting that that's what the word me'odecha means, right? That's not what the word me'odecha means. The word me'odecha is much, is very, right? Me'od me'od is very. So what the pasuk means, the Chofetz Chaim says, is that a person has to, again, love Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so ahavas Hashem has to manifest itself bishnei yetzarecha, it has to manifest itself אפילו נוטל את נפשך and whatever is me'od me'od for the person, whatever is, again, very, very, meaning very, very beloved to the person, whatever he cherishes above all, so that too a person has to be willing to give, to surrender to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I think in the biography it says the context, or at least once, the context in which the Chofetz Chaim said this pshat, he asked his son-in-law, one of the Chofetz Chaim's sons-in-law was Rav Aaron Cohen. So he asked him to undertake certain administrative responsibilities in the yeshiva in Radin. And his son-in-law didn't want to. He wanted to, as he had been doing until then, he wanted to be his full-time preoccupation just to be learning. He didn't want to be encumbered with responsibilities of administration. So the Chofetz Chaim told him this vort of בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך and said for you the bechol me'odecha is you have to be willing even to sacrifice some of your Talmud Torah, even your learning. That's your me'od me'od, that's your bechol me'odecha. So ahavas Hashem is if that's what the situation warrants, you have to be willing to even to surrender that and manifest your ahavas Hashem that way. The Rav zichrono l'vracha also very often, you can see it in his published writings as well, also often spoke about this idea that a person has to surrender what's most valuable to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in in in his avodas Hashem. And and the Rav elaborates it and says that there are three basic areas in which a person does so. First of all, a person does it in the area of the guf, in the carnal realm. There was a Midrash in Shir HaShirim Rabbah that the Rav often quoted again b'ksav u'ba'al peh, Suga bashoshanim. So the Midrash says that you have a chosson and kallah and and she tells him טיפת דם כחרדל ראיתי and right away so they're poreish. That that again act of of of withdrawal, of recoiling. Again this idea of asher yidvenu libo. Then the Rav said another area in which one makes that sacrifice of giving is sometimes in the emotional realm, in one's emotional life, that one can't always accommodate or express what would otherwise be construed as a very natural and vital emotion. So there are times when the Torah says that we have to be misgaber. And he used to illustrate that from Parshas Shmini with Vayidom Aharon. And

פתח אהל מועד לא תצאו ואחיכם כל בית ישראל יבכו את השרפה אשר שרף השם,

that Aharon HaKohen is not even given the opportunity to be misabel over his sons. That there too, again, what greater emotional feeling or need than for a father to be misabel on his sons? But even that, that's part of that asher yidvenu libo, that a person is asked to, again, to sacrifice what's most dear to him. And finally, the Rav said the third area is in the intellectual realm, techum hasechel, that the very idea and existence of chukim means that a person has to, what defines us as people is our sechel and our ability to understand and to think, and what the chok says is that a person has to be ready to sacrifice that also before the Ribbono Shel Olam and say that even though I don't understand, so I'm mekabel what the Torah tells us. I think that's what the, I don't know that he places it in this context, but that's how the Shem MiShmuel, the Avnei Nezer's son, explains what what it means ad d'lo yada on Purim, that that's what the bechina of ad d'lo yada is supposed to be, is supposed to be that idea of, again, of sacrificing the, sacrificing the sechel. Lulei d'mistafina, I would add a fourth area where we're called upon to be mekayem the asher yidvenu libo of giving away, of surrendering, of being mevater on the asher yidvenu libo, and that's in bein adam l'chaveiro. And in some ways, the sacrifice bein adam l'chaveiro can be a greater challenge, a greater nisayon than in the other areas, than in the area of the guf, in the area of hargashos, in the area of sechel. Bein adam l'chaveiro can be even greater. A person is nasty to me, a person talks lashon hara about me. There's a natural reaction that one can feel to want to respond in kind. If not to respond in kind, at least there's probably an even stronger inclination of netira, if not nekama, to hold on to a certain grudge. And על אחת כמה וכמה to have to to have to actively do chesed to to this person whom one doesn't like, who's who's offensive, who's vechulu vechulu, can be a very big nisayon. And the reason it's such a big nisayon is is is the following: In the other areas we mentioned, one's sacrifice, one's surrender is purely bein adam lamakom. In in in being mekadesh the physical realm, the emotional realm, the intellectual realm, so it's... Okay, so I don't understand this mitzvah, I don't understand this din, it doesn't make sense to me. אף על פי כן, so a person is surrendering directly to the ribono shel olam. No other no no people in in the picture. And that's true for each of the three realms that that we mentioned. It can be more of a nisayon to have to surrender to hakadosh baruch hu by surrendering to someone else, by having to swallow and and again, whatever the scenario, you can depict any any any scenario you like. So that can be a bigger nisayon. Because there the hisbatlus to hakadosh baruch hu is expressed by complying with his ratzon through hisbatlus to to people whom we experience as not being worthy or deserving of of our hisbatlus. And that's also a bechina of asher yidvenu libo. That's what the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim when when he when he recounts the gemara in Kiddushin about ad heichan mora'an, just how far mora av goes, that even if he's if even if he's an adam chashuv and he's wearing elegant distinguished clothing and he's yoshev berosh ha'am, and they come and they're korea begado and yorka bo befanav, that that he shouldn't say anything, ואל אחת כמה וכמה לא יחלימם אלא ישתוק ויקבל, I forget the exact lashon, גזירת הקדוש ברוך הוא שצוה על מוראן. But that's a that's a higher yedvenu libo because there hakadosh baruch hu says that the hisbatlus to him is is through, again, ostensibly a hisbatlus to to someone else. And yitachen it's for this reason Rabbeinu Yonah quotes in in the first sha'ar of Sha'arei Teshuva the gemara in Berachos of בחסד ואמת יכופר עון. So emes is Torah, chesed is zu gemilus chasadim, that one of the ikarei teshuva is that a person engages in chesed. So why is that? What's the what's the relevance of of chesed to to doing teshuva? Let's say a person is doing teshuva for an aveira which is bein adam lamakom. It has no no connection to his bein adam lechavero behavior at all. So why is this me'ikarei hateshuva that that a person has to be marbeh in acts of chesed? Ela mai, one one angle on that is is because to be a to to truly do chesed in the, in quotation marks, indiscriminate way that the Torah wants us to do chesed. So then that's a very, very high form of being machnia oneself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu because again, it's relatively speaking, easier to be machnia oneself directly than to have to be machnia oneself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu by being nichna to other people. This side of human nature that it's very that it's a big avoda for us to accept defeat when the defeat is not just directly vis-a-vis Hakadosh Baruch Hu but via being defeated by another person and again, whatever defeat means in the context. So Rabbi Soloveitchik zecher livracha used to tell the following, I think this was also printed in one of his English sefarim subsequently. He said that as a youngster he read what he thought was a very true insight in Freud, that Freud says that the intensity of sin'ah that people feel towards others is greater than the self-love which people have for themselves. Well, that's what he said. So he said he read this and he thought that that was a true insight into human nature. So he told it to his mother and his mother told him, tell it to your father. So vayehi hayom and he tells it to his father. So his father tells him that he didn't have to read it there. He says I heard it from the tate, he heard it from Rav Chaim and it's a mefurash Gemara in Makkos. What's the mefurash Gemara in Makkos? So the Gemara says at the end of Makkos that בגימל מקומות הופיעה רוח הקודש בבית דין. That there were three instances where a psak in beis din was given not through normal human analysis but based on ruach hakodesh. And one of them was Shlomo Hamelech's famous psak with the two women, each of whom was claiming that the live baby was hers, the dead baby was the other one. So then the Gemara challenges each of these three cases and says no, what the beis din did in each case could have been just they could have arrived at that through logical reasoning. There's no hechrech to attribute it to ruach hakodesh. So by Shlomo Hamelech, so maybe Shlomo Hamelech simply realized that הא קא מרחמא והא לא קא מרחמא. One was having compassion on the baby and the other one wasn't having compassion on the baby. So obviously the one who was having compassion, obviously she was the real mother and the other one was the imposter. And Rav Chaim said the emes is it's not so pashut. Ostensibly what's happening here? Ostensibly again, you have one mother, it really is her child. You have another mother who's bereaved, who because she lost her child so she's looking to get a child. So that either one should consent to killing the child is totally irrational. Even the one who's not the real mother, she's acting out of self-love because she's bereaved and she's looking to fill that void in her life, so it's totally irrational for her also. So therefore again, it defies understanding that either woman would react that way is totally irrational, it defies understanding. So how can the Gemara suggest that no, Shlomo Hamelech didn't need ruach hakodesh to have given that psak? And in fact the Gemara says ein hachi nami, it's a tradition that it was ruach hakodesh. You can't really we couldn't have realized that on our own because taka the reasoning could have led to this result. So Rav Chaim said ela mai the pshat is like this. What the Gemara is saying is that Shlomo Hamelech understood that as much as her self-love would impel her to try. To fill again the void in her life, what she was experiencing even more powerfully than her self-love was the resentment and the hatred that her friend still had the child. So that that was the stronger of the two emotions. So then, if you recognize again this insight that the that even stronger than then right the Ramban says as nothing is that Veahavta Lere'acha Kamocha again doesn't mean kayadu'a because you can't love anyone as much as you love yourself. So self-love is so incredibly powerful and אף על פי כן the Gemara realizes no, that what was driving the impostor more than the self-love and looking to fill her own void was the resentment and the hatred that the other one still had. So if you realize that, so then you understand that it wasn't irrational at all because the stronger of her two desires would have been satisfied by by killing the by killing the child. So again, in a microcosm, again, that sense of of having to be nichna to someone else can be a big nisayon. The context in which Rav Chaim said said this vort was there was a maise shehaya in the there was a din Torah in Brisk between one of the the losing tzad to the din Torah was a butcher. And he had a din Torah with I don't know if it was a customer or whoever and the psak went against him and he became so irate and incensed he began being macharif and megadef and in in in Beis Din. So Reb Simcha Zelig said to Rav Chaim afterwards he doesn't understand. He said the same butcher not too long ago came with a shaile of tereifus and and the psak was that it was tereif and he lost more mamon on that than he lost in this din Torah. So why was he going so ballistic over this? And Rav Chaim answered no, it wasn't that he wasn't the hefseid mamon, it was that the other guy, the other guy won. It was the fact that the money was going to the other guy. So that's something which is a a tendency in human nature. And that's zehu zehu part of the מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו again that type of when when circumstances require that type of of hisbatlus is part of the מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו. In general, there are two, maybe others as well, but at least two approaches or two tactics in terms of avoiding divisiveness in in fostering a yeshno am echad. One is what we've been talking about, the מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו. Another one, more definitely more than two, another one is that what we experience as that desire not to be nichna really is a katnus hamochin. It's a very, very small-minded. It's a katnus hamochin. The Rambam offers this this perspective at the end of Hilchos De'os:

הנוקם מחברו עובר בלא תעשה שנאמר לא תקום ואף על פי שאינו לוקה עליו דעה רעה היא עד מאד אלא ראוי לו לאדם להיות מעביר על מדותיו על כל דברי העולם שהכל אצל המבינים דברי הבל והבאי ואינן כדי לנקום עליהם.

So a certain gadlus hamochin also undercuts the the tendency or the desire to to want to respond vachulu. The expressions of asher yidvenu libo that that we've been discussing that a person is called upon to control. Especially what we were talking about bein adam lechavero, so it’s only initially that a person experiences that as a sacrifice. Once a person makes that sacrifice time and time again, so then aderaba, a person realizes just how, again, uplifting that sacrifice was. So it’s experienced besha'ato as asher yidvenu libo, but that sacrifice itself elevates a person that later, having achieved a higher madreiga, he doesn’t experience that same thing as an asher yidvenu libo anymore. Which is not to say, lichora, that the asher yidvenu libo a person ever outgrows. And the pashetus is that’s what the Chazal in the famous maamar when discussing why Moshe Rabbeinu wants to go into Eretz Yisrael, וכי לאכול מפריה הוא צריך, so it means that even Moshe Rabbeinu was called upon the asher yidvenu libo. The asher yidvenu libo Moshe Rabbeinu wanted to come into Eretz Yisrael to be מקיים מצוות התלויות בארץ, to have the kirvas Elokim which even for him on his madreiga would have been enhanced by coming into Eretz Yisrael. So that, again, hachna'ah, that being mekabel what Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, so even on that level the asher yidvenu libo remains, but it’s, it changes as a person achieves higher and higher madreigas.