In trying to formulate some initial preliminary thoughts for this evening, I very much benefited from conversations with my son and son-in-law. Any mistakes are mine. When we study history, we benefit immeasurably from our retrospective vantage point. We can determine and demonstrate which events were seminal, when dramatic turning points occurred, by tracing the arc of history, showing the fallout and formative effects of the seminal events and turning points. But we don't only study history, we also live as history unfolds. Shlomo HaMelech formulated the challenge of living as history unfolds: hachacham einav berosho. Rashi in Koheles, based on Chazal, comments: בתחילת הדבר מסתכל מה יהיה בסופו. The chacham recognizes the implications, the future implications of what's happening in the present. Now this challenge of hachacham einav berosho varies greatly depending upon the tekufah we live in. You know, Sefer Shoftim already depicts the overall forward movement of Jewish history, notwithstanding Jewish history is moving towards the geulah ha'asida. That's the message so beautifully and poignantly and graphically expressed in the Midrash, the posuk in Parshas Vayeishev: ויהי בעת ההיא וירד יהודה מאת אחיו ויט עד איש עדלמי ושמו חירה.
After mechiras Yosef, so then the Torah tells us that the brothers ostracized Yehuda when they saw the tza'ar that Yaakov Avinu was experiencing, and וירד יהודה מאת אחיו. But the Torah says that it's vayehi ba'es hahi, right? Clearly indicating that what's happening is happening in a broader context. So what at that time? Everything happens at that time that it happens. So vayehi ba'es hahi clearly means it was a broader context. So what was happening? So the Midrash says that Reuven was עסוק בשק ובתענית על שבלבל יצועי אביו. Yosef was asuk besak uvesaanis over the mechira because he saw within it an onesh min hashamayim for himself. And then the Midrash says, and what was Hakadosh Baruch Hu busy with? Hakadosh Baruch Hu was busy being בורא אורו של משיח. So whatever else is happening, history has a forward direction. But that notwithstanding, our collective historical experience is also cyclical. At times ויתנם השם ביד פלשתים ארבעים שנה, and at other times Sefer Shoftim tells us ותשקוט הארץ ארבעים שנה. When living at the beginning of a prolonged period of Jewish prosperity, there's not much of a challenge of hachacham einav berosho. There isn't any potential looming danger that needs to be recognized. But we're not living in a time of ov tishkachah ha'aretz. We're not living at the beginning of the Golden Age in Spain. We're not living at the beginning of the Golden Age in the goldene medina either. We need to meet the challenge of hachocham in a be-sha'ah. That challenge is min ha-avodos ha-kashos, not only because the ability to be prescient, to look into the future, is not so common, but the difficulty is compounded by the fact that A, human nature is such that everyone is comfortable in the space that they inhabit, and subconsciously we reject, we resist recognizing potential upheaval. And then the challenge is further compounded by the fact that Wednesday morning the sun rose in the east at exactly the time the luach said it was supposed to rise. So nature also seems to say that nothing potentially cataclysmic happens. It's easier for someone my age who has experienced over the past fifty years has seen the arc of history. It's easier to recognize just how extraordinary and potentially cataclysmic and seismic Tuesday's events were. It was never conceivable that an individual with the public record of actions and pronouncements that he has could be a candidate for office anywhere, much less get elected mayor of New York City. And to be clear, what we're talking about in terms of its potentially, the word potentially is crucial here, hachocham in a be-sha'ah, in talking about its potentially cataclysmic fallout, we're not only talking about its fallout and its effect for those of us who live and are in yeshiva in New York City, nor are we only talking about, although that would obviously be of tremendous, tremendous concern and import, nor are we only talking about American Jewry. We're talking about world Jewry. The hishtadlus for the security of Medinas Yisrael has been linked since its inception with American Jewry. And the significance of the fact that an individual with the record that he has could garner over 50 percent of votes and become mayor of New York City where there's almost bli ayin hara a million Jews is absolutely staggering. Absolutely staggering. He-chacham einav b'rosho doesn't mean that we're supposed to or that we even can know what will happen. And that's for the following reason. In one of the English posthumous sefarim from the Rav Zechrono Livracha on Avraham Avinu's Abraham's journey, so the Rav explains, how does the Chazal which the Ramban made into a pillar of his perush on Sefer Bereishis of מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, how does that allow for bechirah? If Avraham Avinu and Sarah's interactions with Hagar, Yishmael foretell and portend future events and patterns in Jewish history, so of what relevance is our bechirah? Where is our bechirah? And the Rav explains, again Maaseh Avos means that what happened in the lifetime of the Avos determined the future patterns of Jewish history. So how does our behavior make a difference? So the Rav says something extraordinary, extraordinary. He says that just as the Bas Kol recorded in Masechet Eruvin explains that there's אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים about a pasuk in Chumash, that some psukim in Chumash Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't tell Moshe Rabbeinu authoritatively, definitively, what they mean. He said, it'll be up to the Chachmei HaMasorah after mastering everything that is explicit within the Masorah, it'll be up to them to understand what it means. And in those cases, it's possible to have two conflicting, opposing opinions which are equally valid and equally true. So when Beis Shammai says that b'shochbecha u'vkumecha also dictates posture for Krias Shema, and Beis Hillel say it only dictates zman Krias Shema, so the Bas Kol says אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים. They're equally true, equally cogent interpretations of dvar Hashem in Chumash. Again, as the Bas Kol made clear, not equally normative. Says the Rav, just as there's אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים, a phrase in Chumash where Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't reveal to Moshe Rabbeinu authoritatively and definitively what it means, some psukim he did. Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu what ayin tachat ayin means. There's no אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים in what ayin tachat ayin means. Hakadosh Baruch Hu authoritatively, definitively said what it means. But he didn't do so with b'shochbecha u'vkumecha. So just as there's אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים on psukim in Chumash, there's אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים in the Maaseh Avos. There's more than one possible interpretation as to what is portended and what is determined by the Maaseh Avos. There's not only one One possible interpretation and of those different interpretations that's where our bechirah makes a difference. So Hachacham Einav Berosho is not to know for sure what will result from Tuesday's election results. Hachacham Einav Berosho is to recognize how pregnant with implications it is and what the possible trajectory is. And that's illustrated by the Gemara in Gittin, you're all familiar, and in the Churban Agadeta tells us that Rav Tzadok fasted for 40 years, imploring, beseeching Hakadosh Baruch Hu to try to avert Churban Bayis Sheni. Rav Tzadok saw, the Maharsha explains, Rav Tzadok, this was long before the fatal revolt which in terms of military history on the natural plane triggered the Roman assault that resulted in Churban Habayis. Long before that happened, Rav Tzadok saw simanei churban, much more dakestick than the simanim that we're supposed to recognize. He saw spiritual simanim, not tangible political simanim. So if he saw the simanei churban, Hachacham Einav Berosho, so what was he fasting for? No, because he saw what might be. He saw that what was happening in front of him, he saw that there was a trajectory that it could culminate in churban, but he also knew that if Knesses Yisroel would respond in the right way אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים there could be a different interpretation. So Hachacham Einav Berosho is not to know what is going to happen, it's to know what very well Rachmana Litzlan might happen and to recognize the implications. Now just to be clear, we've all been following the news for the past months. We all knew that all the polls predicted this. It's not a question that it was a surprise, but the fact that scientists can predict a volcanic eruption doesn't make the volcanic eruption less significant or less powerful. It's true that Wednesday morning sun rose in the east and Wednesday night the sun set in the west and it's going to continue doing that, Olam keminhago noheg. But that's not an indication that, okay, sometimes your candidate of choice wins and sometimes your candidate of choice loses and we just sort of resume. The response, as always, needs to be a split-level response. There certainly needs to be a response on the natural level, on the natural plane. And again, what we're talking about is the implications again, not only for New York City Jewry, not only for American Jewry, what happened has implications for Medinas Yisroel for Klal Yisroel, potential implications. What the implications will be depend upon us, us and the... So there needs to be a response on the natural level because התורה מצווה בדרך הארץ, the Ramban that we spoke about last week. And I'm sure that each one within his own orbit of the devoted askanim that Klal Yisroel has in Medinas Yisroel, I'm sure that all this is being thought about and they're trying to meet that challenge. I wanted to begin again very preliminarily, inadequately, and incompletely to begin to talk about the response on the spiritual level. When the eis tzara isn't an eis tzara of the hachochom einov berosho of the potential trajectory but as it was throughout the course of the milchama, so then it's easier to identify what the spiritual response is supposed to be. It's easier to know okay we should add Avinu Malkeinu. But that's not the response when, I don't know but I don't think Rav Tarfon was saying Avinu Malkeinu during that same tekufa. So what should our response be? And again it has to be a response that's true and sustainable. I'm not talking on the level of baalei nefesh, I'm talking from my vantage point. We all know to a lesser degree in chutz la'aretz than those who in Eretz Yisroel experienced the unprecedented for most of us in our lifetimes sense of achdus which existed on Isru Chag, October 8th on the secular calendar. When a mortal threat exists, so we learn how without abandoning our principles, how to at the same time have that sense of achdus and ahavas Yisroel. It's a natural reaction to external threat. Kol zman that there's no external threat so then wrongly but understandably we see and focus on the differences that set us apart and push us apart. And when there's an existential external threat So then A, we're intellectually reminded, B, we just viscerally feel that what we have in common with acheinu bnei yisrael transcends, it doesn't diminish, but transcends and and does not, is is never never supplanted by by differences. That sense of achdus should be felt now also. The possible, hachacham einav berosho, the possible trajectory and and I I should I should add, you know, if if you'll object, you know, with the bechinah hachacham einav berosho, shouldn't we have seen it even before this year's election? So the answer is yes, ein hachi nami, ein hachi nami. If you if you can have a a marsha'as, a Congresswoman from Michigan speaking in the House of Representatives with such venom and sinah and sheker about Medinat Yisrael, yeah, so we should have understood then that it wasn't going to remain compartmentalized in Michigan. So ein hachi nami. Are we late in in the hachacham einav berosho? Yes, we are. But al kol panim, one reaction, one difference that we should be feeling as of Wednesday morning, if we didn't feel it before, is that sense of achdus and ahavas yisrael which is fostered by external existential threat. To mention one echad shehu shenayim, one other reaction for tonight. You know, we can and do say the same shemoneh esrei three times a week, three times a day, and then something happens and all of a sudden the same line in shemoneh esrei resonates differently. Because of that, we now we now say it with greater kavanah. If rachmana litzlan someone someone close falls ill, so all of a sudden the berachah refaeinu Hashem venirafeh, the same words which could have been said with with deep proper kavanah, all of a sudden the same words become an instrument and a vehicle of expression for what a person is feeling and experiencing even without adding any additional bakashos. The same words. If one senses a void in in Torah... So even without a different hanhaga, even without an extra tefillah, we're able to respond with the tefillah we already have. So again, in every shmoneh esrei, sim shalom, shalom rav, same thing, different words, same thing. But the more one experiences the need, then the easier it is to connect with that bakasha and take full advantage of it and let that be part of our response. When the ground underneath shakes and one doesn't take things for granted, so even without any new tefillos, just the same tefillah of sim shalom should be said differently. And finally, our קבלת עול מלכות שמים. You know, one element of קבלת עול מלכות שמים is as the pasuk explains in the kapitel mizmor l'soda, דעו כי ה' הוא אלקים הוא עשנו ולא אנחנו עמו וצאן מרעיתו.
The absolute vital religious obligation of hishtadlus, of acting on the natural plane, notwithstanding, simultaneously, קבלת עול מלכות שמים expresses, affirms that recognition of Hashem hu Elokim. And it should be easier to say that when we're at a loss for what the hishtadlus is. Again, I'm talking on the macro level of klal Yisrael. When the hishtadlus that has been our modus operandi for so long is not working the way it seemed to be working until now, that should push us to naturally deepen, intensify, and more fully understand what's part of our קבלת עול מלכות שמים: Hashem hu Elokim. There are all kinds of layers of malchusa d'ara. And again, and there's a reality to that because halacha deals with the natural world. There's a reality to that. But above that reality is the ultimate reality of Hashem hu Elokim and that depth, there should be an added depth not just tonight, tomorrow, but moving forward to our קבלת עול מלכות שמים. That reality is the ultimate reality of dveikus ba'Hashem Elokechem, and that depth, there should be an added depth, not just tonight, tomorrow, but moving forward to our קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. Tonight's shiur is dedicated לעילוי נשמת רב חיים בן שמעון מרדכי זכרונו לברכה, Rav Chaim Heller. This coming week, Wednesday, is his eleventh yahrzeit. We had the zechut to have the Rav in our kehillah for many years. His Torah, his tefillah, his avodat Hashem, his chessed, his tzedakah, his ahavat Yisrael, and really his simchat hachaim and sever panim yafot and that smile will always be with us and may all the Torah we learn tonight be a zechut for his neshamah. It's wonderful to see everybody tonight and to learn together inyanei d'yoma. We find ourselves at the beginning of parshat Terumah and this week we take on the mitzvot of the mishkan. And we know that the parsha begins with ויקחו לי תרומה מאת כל איש אשר ידבנו לבו תקחו את תרומתי.
The Ramban writes at the beginning of the parsha that the main purpose of the mishkan is to serve as a place for the shechinah to rest. As the pasuk says, ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם. The Ramban explains that the mishkan was meant to be a continuation of the experience of Ma'amad Har Sinai. Just as Hashem's presence was revealed on the mountain, so too it would be revealed in the mishkan.