Thank you very much Pras Hashachatz Rav Neuburger Marei De'asra Morai Ve'rabosai. There are two justifications for talking about the inyanei teshuvah. One possible justification is that a person gets up to give divrei mussar, divrei hisorerus in the sense of נאה דורש נאה מקיים. I think the story is told of Rav Yerucham, the Mashgiach of the Mir, that once he was in the middle of a shmuess and all of a sudden he interrupted himself mid-sentence and he went down from the lectern and was heard saying to himself something to the effect of: who are you kidding? Rav Yerucham wouldn't talk about any middah, wouldn't give divrei mussar about anything unless he felt that he had already cultivated that middah. So that's one basis, one justification for speaking divrei mussar, divrei hisorerus in inyanei teshuvah. Another one is that in order for a person to know what it is that he, she has to accomplish, what it is that he or she has to set as a priority, so not naeh doreish, but a person has to, as the Mesillas Yesharim says, a person has to have some understanding as to what his, her goal should be in order to know what our avodah is in these days. I speak on the second basis, not on the first one. In the little collection of some of the sayings from the Gaon that they quote from the Biur HaGra on Mishlei on the posuk of החזק במוסר אל תרף נצרה כי היא חייך, hold on to mussar, don't release your grip, guard over it because it's your life. And the Gaon comments on that posuk that a person has to be constantly involved in tikkun hamiddos because if he's not involved in tikkun hamiddos, lama lo chayim? There's no point to life if a person is not on an ongoing basis involved in tikkun hamiddos. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges in the realm of tikkun hamiddos, maybe the biggest challenge in tikkun hamiddos is self-centeredness. The reason for this is that it's very natural and very innate. Our, by definition, our existence is we view things from our, in light of our existence. Just to give a little bit of an example of what we're talking about. When we talk about events that have happened, so if you talk about the Persian Gulf War 20 years ago. So if you talk to a teenager, so that's something that belongs to the history books because he draws the lines and he defines what's more or less recent history as opposed to what belongs to the history books in terms of when he was born. So if he was born after that event, so then this belongs to the history books. So we all do that and it's impossible to do otherwise. So there is a natural self-centeredness that we all have. My daughter recently told me about an experiment that psychologists have done. They take a child, I'm not sure exactly what the age is, they take a child, they have a model, a child is sitting on one side of a table and the psychologist running the experiment is sitting on the other side of the table. And in between they have a model of a mountain. And on one side of the mountain they have a little toy store, they have a representation of a store, and on the other side they have a representation of a few houses. So they ask the child: if you're going down the mountain right towards where the psychologist is sitting, where they have the toy store, what will you see when you get to the bottom of the mountain? What's the first thing you're going to see? So the child says: well, I'll see a store. Then they ask the child: and if I, the psychologist, I'm going down the mountain on the other side and right in front of the child are these houses, what will be the first thing that I'll see? So the child can't answer. There's a natural innate self-centeredness that we all have. they have and it's something that we I think recognize intuitively which is just very graphically illustrated by that experiment. The need to work on that middah of self-centeredness becomes especially acute in preparing for Rosh Hashanah. The sefarim quote, I saw this very recently in a sefer Einei Yisrael from Rav Weintraub zichrono livracha that the Zohar HaKodesh comments on the following pasuk in Sefer Melachim: ויהי היום ויעבור אלישע אל שונם ושם אשה גדולה ותחזק בו לאכול לחם.
That Elisha passes through Shunem and there's a great woman there and she provides for all his needs and she makes sure that he has food to eat. And he says to her ויאמר לה מה לעשות לך היש דבר לדבר לך אל המלך או אל שר הצבא.
How can I repay your kindness? Can I put in a good word for you with someone? And she answers בתוך עמי אנכי יושבת. And she says no, I have no personal needs, I don't need, I don't need, thank you, but no thank you. So the Zohar HaKodesh says that ויהי היום בה הידיעה is Rosh Hashanah. That this exchange is happening on Rosh Hashanah and that the answer of the ishah gedolah, the ishah Shunamit, the ishah gedolah is that on Rosh Hashanah I'm not preoccupied with my individual concerns. I don't want to stand out as an individual but rather I want to just be part of the klal. בתוך עמי אנכי יושבת. On a very different level, now this was not the time and obviously there's follow-through in terms of how this gets integrated into bakashos on Rosh Hashanah and that needs to be done, but that's not our focus now. A very different type of mareh makom, the Rambam writes in Hilchos Shofar in perek gimmel of Hilchos Shofar, the Rambam writes that הציבור חייבין לשמוע התקיעות על סדר הברכות. The Rambam is of the opinion that the chiyuv to hear shofar, not only to hear the 30 kolos of shofar but to hear תקיעות על סדר הברכות, so the wording in the Rambam suggests that he understands this to be not a chovas yachid but to be a chovas tzibbur. That a yachid qua yachid has no chiyuv to hear תקיעות על סדר הברכות. That's why the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah tells the story that one of the Amora'im couldn't be in shul on Rosh Hashanah and he was going to have his attendant, he was going to have his baal tokeiah blow for him in the middle of the Shmoneh Esrei and they tell him no, it says in the baraisa that לא אמרו אלא בחבר עיר, that the תקיעות על סדר הברכות is reserved for tzibbur. Now תקיעות על סדר הברכות represents the ideal kiyum of Malchiyos. The ideal kiyum of Malchiyos is to say the psukim of Malchiyos and then to blow the shofar, to say the psukim of Zichronos and then to blow the shofar. So it means that the full kiyum, the optimal fulfillment of Malchiyos is only possible betzibbur, is only possible בתוך עמי אנכי יושבת, when a person is again not preoccupied with himself as an individual but rather בתוך עמי אנכי יושבת. Why is that? So we have a lashon from the Rishonim that אין מלך בלא עם. That Adon Olam אשר מלך בטרם כל יציר נברא לעת נעשה בחפצו כל אזי מלך שמו נקרא.
That HaKadosh Baruch Hu, HaKadosh Baruch Hu אזי מלך שמו נקרא, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, His name was known, He was called as melech after creating, after creating the world. Rishonim have a lashon that אין מלך בלא עם. Meaning a yachid can recognize his own dependence, his own subordination to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and each of us should do this as yechidim as well, but the ultimate Malchiyos can only be betzibbur, that אין מלך בלא עם. And perhaps this is reflected in the fact that Chazal reserved the fullest kiyum of Malchiyos in terms of תקיעות על סדר הברכות davka betzibbur. הציבור חייבין לשמוע התקיעות על סדר הברכות. So in preparing for Rosh Hashanah, the need to work on the natural self-centeredness which I think everyone has to a degree becomes it's more acute before Rosh Hashanah, but it's a constant priority in our avodas Hashem. And here perhaps just to clarify one point. Chazal clearly acknowledge this preoccupation with oneself and one's own concerns in לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ומצוות אפילו שלא לשמה, שמתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה
is an acknowledgment again of one's sort of selfish motivation, and as the Rambam writes in the hakdamah to Perush HaMishnayos in Perek Chelek, it represents a concession that Chazal hitiru, that Chazal allowed, they gave a dispensation that a person should be allowed to act on that self-centered motivation in terms of his talmud Torah and also mitzvos. But Chazal allow this self-centered motivation, but they don't allow a self-centered avodas Hashem. There's a difference between an avodas Hashem where my motivation is to a degree self-centered as opposed to where the avodas Hashem is itself self-centered. And perhaps maybe to give a few illustrations, and then all intended as תן לחכם ויחכם עוד. So I'll begin with something that happened to me this summer. We had the zechus to be in Eretz Yisrael and one Shabbos we were in the Old City. Friday night I was davening in the Ramban Shul where Rav Nebenzahl davens a lot of the time. So between Kabbalas Shabbos and Maariv, he gives a dvar Torah. And as all of you know, if you've ever heard Rav Nebenzahl speak, he speaks very, very softly. I don't have the most acute... my hearing isn't the most acute, so I was having trouble hearing him. So I stood up a little bit to lean forward to be able to catch what he was saying. Not aware of the fact that in so doing I was now obstructing someone else's path and blocking the sound waves and making it more difficult, if not impossible, for that person to be able to hear. So I get a tap on the shoulder and was very embarrassed to realize... it wasn't intended to embarrass me, it was just intended to get me to sit back down, and was very embarrassed to realize that in my zeal or overzealousness to try to hear, I was just interfering with someone else, someone else who had equal interest and equal right, probably more than equal right, he probably davened there every Friday night, in their listening. So that unfortunately is a good example of again, maybe a little bit of a minor example, but not insignificant, of self-centeredness in avodas Hashem, that one pursues one's avodas Hashem at the expense of someone else, certainly without any awareness of בתוך עמי אנכי ישבת. The self-centeredness often expresses itself... our self-centeredness will often express itself through a certain sense of entitlement. Whether to take the example, let's say, if a person's at a simcha. So we get waited upon, so there are waiters who serve the meal and bring the drinks. So sometimes we just sit there without any acknowledgment of the service being provided, the rationale being, well they're getting paid and it's their job, so what am I obligated to acknowledge them? Again, it's that sense of entitlement, the sense of not recognizing the other person, that the other person is also a person, bishvili nivra ha'olam, so bishvilo nivra ha'olam also, to acknowledge with a thank you, hakaras hatov in any and all contexts. In more, in bigger areas where the self-centeredness, again, it's often subtle, it's not something that we necessarily associate with selfishness, it surfaces in the following. Sometimes we have the attitude, let's say a person is comfortable... and can afford to make a very lavish simcha. So a son is becoming bar mitzvah or marrying off a child and's gonna make a very lavish simcha and he's gonna run up a bill of six figures. It's gonna be a very very very lavish simcha. So often I think the attitude that we have is you know I have the money, I'm not encroaching upon anyone else, I'm paying my own bills, so it's well within well within my rights to to sponsor such a simcha for my son, for my daughter, whatever the case may be. And this while simultaneously we probably on a daily basis get mailings about the whether it's poverty pockets of poverty in Klal Yisrael, whether it's the much discussed in in recent days and weeks and months the much discussed tuition crisis in our communities. So it's also the truth is I think if we're honest with ourselves and hopefully before Rosh Hashanah we can do that, there's also a certain self-centeredness there. That notion that my money is mine, which isn't which to a degree is correct al pi din, but to a degree is is totally off al pi din. The money is mine, no one else can help themselves to it, but I'm meshubad to be giving tzedaka. There's a shibud to give tzedaka. Exactly what type of kfiya the Gemara in Ketubot is talking about when the Gemara says that that Rava engaged in in kfiya in coercion that people should give tzedaka is subject to machloket Rishonim exactly how that that coercion is played out. But it's not that the money is is mine. The problems which exist in Klal Yisrael, it's not someone else's problem and when I give however much money I give so I'm going lifnim mishurat hadin. The Rav zecher tzadik livracha would often comment when in my youth, I think there was a different form in earlier generations but when I was growing up in Boston so the Rav used to give a drasha on Motzei Shabbat. It wasn't wasn't a shiur, it was a drasha. And a theme that he often return often returned to in those drashot was he used to contrast the Torah's idea of morality with the Western sense of morality and the favorite example he gave is the attitude towards tzedaka. That in the to the Western mind so tzedaka philanthropy is something which is lifnim mishurat hadin. It's something where a person is going beyond the letter of the law, it's something a person has no obligation to do. And again the word charity, charitableness suggests that a person is going beyond what he really has to do. And that's what the Rav always used to say, and in the halakha so tzedaka is a chiyuv. There's nothing which is lifnim mishurat hadin about giving tzedaka. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives person gives person money, he has the wherewithal to give tzedaka, so a person is supposed to feel that he's a gabbai tzedaka. He's not supposed to feel that this is my money and therefore no one has a right to to say anything. There's nothing wrong if I want to however much money I want to blow on a simcha is no one's business. No, Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives me money so I'm a gabbai tzedaka. So ein hachinami לאחיך לעניך ולאביונך בארצך. The fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave me the money so that does mean something. It does mean something in terms of how that money is allocated but it doesn't mean that I have no responsibility towards others in terms of how I use that blessing which Hakadosh Baruch Hu bestowed upon me. The Beit HaLevi has a very very beautiful mashal in Parashat Terumah. He comments on the phrase Veyikchu li trumah, again as many others, that the Midrash already comments that it should really have been Veyitnu li trumah, you give money you don't take when you're giving tzedaka. So the Beit HaLevi gives a mashal like this: He says that our real connection to money, he says it's like he gives a mashal, you have this gigantic cube of sugar and you have this tiny tiny tiny insect and the insect is is trapped inside a trunk together with this with this tremendous cube of sugar. Now even if the insect wants it can't pick up that cube of sugar and transport it wherever it wants and take it. So the insect thinks had the foolishness, oh here I am, this is my cube of sugar. But le'maise can't can't do anything with it. So that's what the Beis Halevi says also, that's really what we are with our money also. The only way a person can really hold onto his money is when a person takes his money and gives tzedakah. A person takes his money and gives tzedakah, so then a person is holding onto his money because he translated that into an eternal zechus that he has. A person just holds onto his money, whether it sits in the bank or whether he uses it for lavish expenses, a person is not really, he's like the fly in the chest with the cube of sugar, the Beis Halevi says. He quotes the Gemara in Bava Basra that the Munbaz HaMelech opened up the treasure houses of the kingdom and gave tzedakah and says that avosai ganzu l'acher, that my ancestors, they saved money for other people. He says, 'I'm saving for myself,' and he gave it all away to tzedakah. So the truth is, that's kind of intuitive. But I think the reason that we fail to intuit that attitude towards money is because of a natural again self-centeredness which we haven't succeeded in refining and overcoming, so instead we view it as ours and therefore it's, I'm well within my rights to do whatever I want with it. But in truth, the money is not mine. The same is true again also in that area. Often I think when we're approached for money, whether we're approached by nebach individuals who they themselves have been reduced to having to ask for money, or whether we're approached by very, very noble people who are acting as gabbai tzedakah, so often we feel imposed upon and that attitude is conveyed whether verbally or through body language, but that attitude gets conveyed. The truth is that גדול המעשה יותר מן העושה. When a gabbai tzedakah comes over to us, what he's doing is much more than what we're doing and that we owe him a yasher koach for giving us the mitzvah. So what do we give if an oni asks and we give x dollars, ish kematnas yado? We give x dollars, okay, so that's what we gave out of our pocket, x dollars. And what did he give us? He gave us a mitzvah which remains ledorei doros, which remains lanetzach netzachim. So it's not clear who did whom the greater favor: I did him the favor or he did me the favor? But again, there's a certain self-centeredness which prevents us from seeing that. And really the attitude we should have is again whether approached, again it doesn't mean that we shouldn't check to make sure that the oni, that the case is for real and is genuine, but given that, having established that fact that it is for real, that it is genuine, so the truth is that that person is mezakeh me. He's doing me a favor. He, the oni, the gabbai tzedakah, is doing me a favor. I'm not doing him a favor with whatever meager amount I'm giving him. We mentioned the example in terms of the tuition, so here too it's a halacha, I think in Choshen Mishpat it's discussed in the siman of different taxes which are levied upon a community that one of the taxes is to provide for melamdim, that there should be melamdei tinokos. That the response, it's not that when the, if the father can't afford to pay, so then the responsibility does shift to the community. And again, it's something where it's a halacha that we would be much more in sync with and would respond more naturally to the degree that we're able to work on and to overcome the self-centeredness. In reality, chessed demands this refinement or this transcending the natural self-centeredness. There are two stories, one is a maiseh shehoya, the other presumably is, I don't know where it is, but they both illustrate the point very, very beautifully. The story is told of the Beis Halevi that a woman comes to the Beis Halevi... And then he asks the woman to wait for a minute and he goes over to a drawer and he takes out a wad of bills and he comes back and says to her, no, I don't think you can use milk for the arba kosos and by the way here take this and you know see maybe there's something extra you can get for yontif with it. So after the woman leaves, so all the bnei bayis of the Beis Halevi are very puzzled as to what happened. The woman comes in and she asks a foolish question and he sits and ponders over it like it's a kasha of Rabbi Akiva Eiger and then what's more she walks away for her efforts she walks away with a wad of bills. So the Beis Halevi says, first of all, whenever anyone asks a question, so a rav has to relate to the question very seriously. A rav has to validate to the questioner otherwise the person's going to be hesitant to come with questions in the future. Second of all he said, perhaps she doesn't know that you can't use milk for arba kosos, but she certainly knows that after eating fleishiks you can't drink milk. If she was contemplating using milk for arba kosos, so obviously it means that they're so destitute that she's not planning on having any fleishiks at the seder. So that's why I gave her the money for the tzorchei hachag. So what distinguished the Beis Halevi? So usually the story is told to illustrate his brilliance, his genius, and I suppose it does illustrate that as well, but what it really illustrates is his ability to see something from someone else's vantage point. From our vantage point, so it's a silly question and if anything it's just sort of an annoyance of why should this great man's time be taken up with a silly question. From the Beis Halevi saw things from her vantage point, he wasn't just so consumed with his own vantage point, he understood what it reflected from her end. The other story is told of a Chassidishe Rebbe. He's speaking at Shalosh Seudos in Yiddish of course, and the Chassidim are hanging on every word. And then this crude boorish farmer pushes his way through and gets to the front and interrupts the Rebbe's drasha and says, you know Rebbe, my horse doesn't pull the wagon the way it used to, what should I do. And he's not speaking Yiddish, he's speaking in the vernacular. So the Chassidim are aghast at this chutzpah, but somehow they contain themselves, and the Rebbe says, you know try adding a little sugar in with the oats and maybe that will solve the problem. He resumes the divrei Torah, the Chassidim are soaring when they're listening to the divrei Torah. And again, just as they've been able to sort of overcome the deficit of the previous interruption, so who's back again? The farmer's back again and he says, no Rebbe, that's not going to do it because I already tried it, you have to give me another eitzah. So the Rebbe says, I think you should check the horseshoes. Sometimes when if the horseshoes no longer fit well, so then it's very painful for the horse to walk, to trot, and that could be what's interfering. At this point the Chassidim are beside themselves but still they don't react. The Rebbe resumes the divrei Torah and then a third time the farmer comes and begins asking a question. So this time the Chassidim are moving to bodily evict him, at which point the Rebbe says to the Chassidim, says it in Yiddish so that the farmer won't be embarrassed, he won't understand. He says, don't you understand, he says, he's not talking to me about his horse. He says, I'm a big equestrian expert here, there's no better mumche for him to consult about the horses. He says, he wants to have a kesher with me, he really wants to have a kesher with the Ribbono Shel Olam, he wants to have a connection with me. He says, he never went to cheder. He says, you want to have a connection with me, you ask me a kasha on Chumash and Rashi, ask me a kasha on a Mishnah on a daf Gemara. He has no, he doesn't speak that language. He's been out in the fields working with his father since he was three years old, the only thing he knows is horses and farm life, so it's the only thing he can talk about but that's really what he wants, that's really what he's looking for. And that's what the Rebbe tells the Chassidim. Again, what's expressed in that beautiful story is that in order to be able to recognize the need for chesed and then be able to do chesed, we can only do chesed if we recognize the need. So how do we go about it halacha l'maaseh? So we know that there is this challenge in terms of tikkun hamiddos. We gave a few illustrations. So how do we go about it halacha l'maaseh? How does a person go about it when a person recognizes a certain shortcoming or a certain flaw in himself? So how does a person go about effecting tikkun hamiddos? So basically in the sefarim we find two different approaches. One approach is the Rambam talks about this in Hilchos De'os. The Sefer HaChinuch famously talks about it. Ramchal famously talks about it. If a person acts a certain way, so then it helps instill within him, it helps cultivate within him that midda. So Ramchal says that even if a person doesn't feel a tremendous hislahavus, if a person will force himself to act with zerizus, if a person will force himself to run to the beis medrash, a person will force himself to run to shul, he doesn't really feel, he really feels kind of lazy, he feels kind of uninspired, but if a person will force himself day in and day out to run to the beis medrash to learn, to run to shul to daven, to run to do a mitzvah, to run to do a chesed, so then, then Ramchal writes, so that then creates the hislahavus. Hislahavus expresses itself through zerizus, but acts of zerizus help create and help generate the hislahavus as well. So the more we, the more we engage again in actions, again, whether it's, whether it's the simple thing of looking before we stand up to get a better position to be able to hear a dvar Torah, the more, the more we say a thank you, the more we, we try to give tzedakah, the more we try to tone down our lavish spending to provide for what we think of as other people's needs, so the more that chips away at that natural self-centeredness. That's one approach in general to tikkun hamiddos. The other approach, which one finds in the sefarim in tikkun hamiddos, we have this in Ramchal as well, you have this the Rama talks about it, is that a person spends time reflecting upon certain basic ideas. If there's a certain basic hashkafa that I know should be governing and dictating my actions, but I realize that it's not. I realize that again, that a sense of בתוך עמי אנכי ישבת is what should be guiding me, not, not the natural self-centeredness. If a person sits quietly away from the distractions of cell phones and everything else, and sits quietly and reflects upon that day in day out, so then that, that reflection also helps it seep in and help a person internalize. That's what the Rama talks about כשישים האדם אל לבו. That's why Ramchal writes in the hakdama to Mesillas Yesharim that he intends the Mesillas Yesharim not to be read once, but he intends the Mesillas Yesharim to be read and reread again and again because it's that constant reflection upon basic ideas which helps us make the transition from וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך. So I hope we should all have the siyata dishmaya to be able to make progress in this and wish you all a gut yohr ksiva vchasima tova.