We'll try with Be'ezrat Hashem to very briefly continue last week's theme on Elul as a time to focus not on special avodah necessarily, but on what our avodah should be all year. And in that vein, I'd like to share, to offer myself and and you the following very simple thought. You know often with a modicum of self-awareness, elementary heshbon hanefesh, we are or become aware of serious deficiencies or lacunae in our avodas Hashem. In response, we feel helpless, we seek eitzah. But in reality we're not helpless but fully empowered. And we don't need eitzah because hazal have already provided the guidance which we simply ignore. Hazal identified not only goals and and obligations within avodas Hashem but also necessary and successful strategies and methods. We pay attention to the goals and obligations and undercut ourselves by neglecting the strategies and methods. So following are three illustrations which doesn't represent that much quantitatively but they actually encompass much, most of Torah. Number one, we struggle to retain what we learn. Certainly in terms of ultimate goals within avodas Hashem, yedias hatorah obviously stands front and center. Not just limud hatorah but yedias hatorah. And we struggle to retain what we learn. So when I was when I was a kid growing up, my maternal grandmother I was very young when she was nifteres, so didn't have too many deep exchanges. But my paternal grandmother aleha hashalom, I was older. I was in my teens when she was nifteres. So she used to tell me all the time, all the time she used to quote ba'al peh the following hazal that כל הלומד ואינו חוזר הוא כזורע ואינו קוצר. That if one learns and doesn't systematically review, it's akin to planting and then not harvesting. All the work and effort which is invested in the planting doesn't yield any dividend if a person doesn't invest the follow-up effort in in the harvesting. Decades ago, חכם עובדיה זכרונו לברכה came and spent a week here in in yeshiva. And he gave he gave some public shiurim. He also gave a habura in Rav Schachter's kollel. That was in the old days when when Rav Schachter's kollel was on the third floor of of First Hall. So after after the habura, so he gave a little bit divrei mussar. So he said that people come to him all the time for a bracha that they should remember what they learn. For some reason, people thought that might be a good address to get a bracha for remembering what you learn. So he said that that people come to him all the time for a bracha to remember what they learn. So he says, his reaction always is he asks them, "Well, do you do you do hazara?" And the answer was all too predictable. And he said, "You don't need a bracha. You need to do hazara." Illustration number two: davening with kavana. So I think many of us wistfully think if only we could. The Rambam based on Chazals in Maseches Brachos writes in פרק ד' הלכות תפילה I'm skipping a little bit what I'm reading is not consecutive in the Rambam. כונת הלב כיצד כל תפלה שאינה בכונה אינה תפלה. Keitzad hi hakavana sheyifaneh libo a person should empty his mind mikol hamachshavos ויראה עצמו כאלו הוא עומד לפני השכינה. Lefichach says the Rambam therefore consequently צריך לישב מעט קודם התפלה כדי לכוין את לבו. It's necessary for a person to have a transitional period between whatever he's been doing beforehand and davening. The Rama writes in Siman Tzadik Ches in Shulchan Aruch ויחשוב קודם התפלה מרוממות הקל יתעלה the exaltedness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu uvishiflus ha'adam ויסיר כל תענוגי האדם או העולם מלבו. So Chazal provided us again not only did they identify the requirement that kavana is indispensable but they tell us how we can position ourselves to have kavana. And the third example tikkun hamidos. I'll speak in the royal plural. We go through life with the same character flaws. We console maybe it's intended more as justification self-justification than it is consolation. We console ourselves by invoking Rav Yisrael Salanter that it's easier to learn all of Shas than it is to correct one mida. And obviously that's true. And yet kemidomeh while we acknowledge the what the goal of tikkun hamidos we neglect the how the method. And again a halacha pesuka in the Rambam in פרק א' הלכות דעות we mentioned this same halacha last week to illustrate last week's theme. The Rambam writes as follows: הדרך הישרה היא מדה בינונית בכל דעה ודעה מכל דעה שיש לאדם והיא הדעה שהיא רחוקה משני הקצוות ריחוק שווה ואינה קרובה לא לזו ולא לזו.
Person has the self-control the self-discipline that he's not ruled by emotions by taivos by impulses but he rules over his emotions taivos and impulses. Now implicitly the Rambam says the Rambam's assuming that we recognize that this is a tall order. It's not a simple avoda not something which is easily or quickly attained because the Rambam continues: Lefichach right and therefore tzivu chachamim harishonim שיהא אדם שם דעותיו a person should be appraising... his character traits. There should be a a person should be engaged in self-appraisal tamid, constantly. That's Ein hachi nami, it's it's a very big avodah. The Rambam says yeah, what what I just formulated here in the beginning of the halacha, it is, it is very challenging. And the way to accomplish it is ציוו חכמים הראשונים שיהיה אדם שם דעותיו תמיד. A person has to constantly be engaged in in in this process of self-appraisal, משער אותן ומכוון אותן בדרך האמצעית. As Rabbi Yisrael Salanter depicted, tikun hamiddos is a very challenging avodah, but we're also provided with an approach. Tamid. We need to daily carve out time for reflection and calibration. When when we hear of tzadikim who had set times for hisbodedus, so by definition no one's really privy to what was happening and and what they were doing, but presumably some of that time was devoted to fulfilling this mandate of the Rambam. You know life often on one level is very complex and and difficult to navigate, but on another level life is also simple and we complicate it by ignoring the roadmap which Chazal provided for us.