Rabbi Leibowitz's presentation was was very beautiful and pretty comprehensive as well. Providently, I didn't prepare too much to say this morning, so I'm not going to spoil things by being mosif v'goreya to too much of an extent I hope. He spoke about how our avoda, what's incumbent upon us this past year, has basically been to engage in tefillah and teshuva. It's that combination which Hakadosh Baruch Hu guarantees results. Now the question is, at any point does does is the intensity supposed to abate? It's been almost 12 months, it was a leap year, so the the yahrzeit will be will be 13 months. It's been almost 12 months since the horrific events of Shemini Atzeres. Is it realistic to maintain that intensity? Because it certainly was there initially. I think we all were devastated and all responded, were very much involved, caught up with, identifying with what was happening in Eretz Yisrael. And at any point does in halakha, does that reaction abate? Is it supposed to abate? Now the same question can also be posed instead of halakhically, empirically, sociologically. And there, unfortunately, the answer is only too clear that that our reaction has changed, it has diminished in its intensity. And again, Hashem yireh l'levav, but just in terms of the quantitative elements that are discernible to a person who's ro'eh l'einayim, who can only see the surface. And I think most of us initially after Shemini Atzeres were saying more than one kapittel Tehillim after davening. And that's been reduced. I don't know in terms of what I saw initially, people waited till the end of davening, even people who otherwise ordinarily felt a real a self-imposed or an imagined pressure to get out of shul early, but in those first days after the terrible, terrible events, made it their business to stay. And now it seems to be more of an olam k'minhago noheg. It seems that we've more regressed and those who need to to to leave early are are doing so. So empirically the answer is clear that that the avoda has abated, it has weakened. The question is, is that correct al pi halakha or not? The Gemara in Taanis speaking of when taaniyos are introduced in the sequence of Behab, Monday, Thursday, Monday, Monday, Thursday, Monday because of a tzara, so the Gemara says that even though taaniyos... Until Hakadosh Baruch Hu has rachmanas on us. So there isn't a maximum period of focus, of involvement, of identification, of empathy. It's ad sheyeionu, it's open-ended, it's until Hakadosh Baruch Hu responds. Ad sheyeruchamu, until Hakadosh Baruch Hu has rachmanos. Eis tzora is a mechayiv. When we collectively find ourselves in an eis tzora, it's mechayiv. The Ramban famously, who disputes the Rambam in classifying tfila as a mitzva from the Torah on a daily basis, says but tfila be'eis tzora is a mitzva from the Torah. The Rav Soloveitchik points out in his classic essay called Dodi Dofek, the Rambam in the beginning of Hilchos Taniyos says that when the Torah in Parshas Behaaloscha says that there's a mitzva to blow the chatzotzros, to blow the trumpets על הצר הצורר אתכם, whether it's a milchomo or any other form of tzora of potential or actual calamity, so the Rambam says ze miderchei hateshuva, that this response that the Torah mandates is a form of and an expression of teshuvah, because eis tzora obligates us in teshuvah. Now if the eis tzora is ongoing, so that obligation is ongoing. That's what the thrust of the Gemara in Taanis is, that as long as the eis tzora rachmana litzlan continues, so then the mechayiv which the eis tzora represents, what the eis tzora obligates us to do, that remains in force. Well, what about the reaction? It's a sincere reaction that we have. Not everything sincere is correct, but it's a sincere reaction that we have. But it's just so difficult, and maybe the word so should be replaced with too difficult to sustain that kind of focus over such a long period. It's one thing for a day, a week, two weeks, to add kapitel Tehillim two, three times a day, many communities were saying Avinu Malkeinu, but it's just so difficult and it seems maybe even too difficult to be able to sustain it. But I think we all know that human nature is such that the line between what's difficult and too difficult, the line, the border between what really pushes us and between what's impossible, that line shifts depending upon whether we view it as something which is an absolute necessity. If a person's life depends upon it, so all of a sudden a person discovers kochos hanefesh, all of a sudden a person discovers resilience and the capacity to continue that he never ever knew that he had. We're all familiar with such stories, whether they're stories of what people endured during the Holocaust rachmana litzlan, whether it's the stories of how long the hostages are holding on now under unlivable conditions. I don't know if we would have asked any of those hostages, "Could you endure?" No, so thinking about it in theory the answer is no. It is too difficult, it is impossible. But when one is in the situation and one realizes that there's no alternative, there isn't an alternative, that that slackening off, giving up, isn't an alternative. So then one discovers kochos, one's able to tap into certain wellsprings that one usually under normal circumstances is unaware of. Like there's an emergency supply of fuel of oil in this country. So we have an emergency supply Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us an emergency supply of resilience. So the question is how we view our obligation to be davening, to be davening for the chayalim who literally are risking life and limb, to be davening that they should be spared so that their parents and grandparents are spared the ultimate tragedy of I don't think there's anything more intense, I don't think there's anything more painful than that which the mishpachos shachulos, that which the parents and grandparents who have to bury a child or a grandchild endure. So the question is: Is that something which is a good thing to do, a very good thing to do? It's something we really should do. If that's all it is, then it's impossible to maintain for a year. But if it's something we must do, if it's something which is an absolute obligation and responsibility of ours, so then the line between possible and impossible changes and we're able to clear the bar and we are able to maintain. There's a choice that we have as a community. We can either adopt 'we can't' or we can adopt 'we must'. Recently in reflecting upon the current ongoing situation and our responsibility, the responsibility that devolves upon us, so the following struck me in reviewing a halacha in the Rambam. The Rambam is describing poresh midarkei tzibur, a Jew who doesn't identify with the Jewish people. Now just to be clear, we're focusing in this Rambam, I'm introducing it not because rachmana litzlan I'm suggesting or insinuating or for a moment think that that's what describes our reaction. We're looking at one end of a spectrum, we're looking at one extreme of a spectrum because that will also help us understand the entire spectrum of what it means to fully identify. So when one looks at one extreme, so there are lessons to be learned, there are things which can be extrapolated for the entire spectrum. The Rambam describes a poresh midarkei tzibur, someone who separates himself from the community, from the Jewish people as follows. The Rambam says that such a person אע"פ שלא עבר עבירות, even though you can't catch him on any, we should in brackets put in the word other, any other aveira. No, his kashrus is to the highest standard, waits till very late after Shabbos when he makes havdala, et cetera. אע"פ שלא עבר עבירות אלא נבדל מעדת ישראל, but he separates himself from the Jewish people ואינו עושה מצוות בכללן. He doesn't join them in doing mitzvos. He davens, doesn't daven in shul. Doesn't join in doing mitzvos. Obviously that's just one example. v’lo nichnas b’tzarasam. He doesn't literally enter their times of suffering and distress v’lo mis’aneh b’ta’anisam, and he doesn't fast on their fast days. So what is the one is the Rambam indicting the person for? Ideally there should be a feeling. There should be a feeling and as Rabbi Leibowitz mentioned before there should be a feeling that that we should be as invested as though it were our sons, our grandsons who who are on the front lines who are in the south, in the north, being bombarded by by missiles. But where the Rambam sets the bar for poresh midarkei tzibbur is much lower. He makes it much easier. Rambam's talking about actions. Feelings when they're not present it takes time to generate. You can't just flip a switch and and awaken feelings. But action is something a person can flip a switch and he can do. The Rambam's emphasizing that the poresh midarkei tzibbur even on the level of action isn't doing what what he should be doing. You know, we mentioned before the Tehillim. Again, anecdotally, which which may be a misrepresentation, there's always that danger in in drawing upon anecdotes. Anecdotally, I see again that the Tehillim has been in many places gone down to one kapittel. What what does one kapittel say? What what does it bespeak when we say one kapittel? Basically, it says well I realize that we cannot do nothing so let me find the the bare minimum to patter up. Let me find the bare minimum to to discharge the obligation. Okay, so one kapittel we're saying Tehillim. At least two, at least two, obviously one can constantly ask the same question but but it's not the same. The question loses its sting when you go from one to two. It's not the same question anymore. At least two, it means that the standard isn't trying to you know discharge something that that's an imposition and intrusion. No, but but it's something we feel, something that we're put we're extending ourselves. And even if the feeling is not there we can do it without the feeling. And that will awaken the feeling. It will arouse the feeling. Yes the tza'aka has to be b'lev shalem but when a person invests that that awakens and arouses the feelings. The Rambam describes a person's involvement with darkei tzibbur, he describes it in the level of action. Because there there are no excuses, there's nothing to hide behind. Maybe the feelings are not there and and again they can't be flipped on, there's no switch to flip on feelings but but actions can can be engaged in. We mentioned that Chazal say that our focus, our intensity, our avodah has to continue עד שיענו עד שיבחנו until until we're answered, until Hakadosh Baruch Hu has rachmanut on us. Is it really open-ended? So in the first siman in Shulchan Aruch, this is one of the first se'ifim in all of all of Shulchan Aruch. So the Mechaber writes ראוי לכל ירא שמים. Maybe ra'ui translates as it's appropriate or or maybe ra'ui has a stronger connotation than it's appropriate but it's really something which is self-evident that this is what a yerei shamayim should be doing שיהיה מיצר ודואג על חורבן בית המקדש. That he should be distressed and he should be worried about the implications of churban. It's been 2000 years, almost 2000 years. Since the churban. Okay, so the Mechaber lived in the sixteenth century, so it was a millennia and a half when when the Mechaber when the Mechaber wrote and the reaction to churban is not supposed to have abated. ראוי לכל ירא שמים שיהיה מיצר ודואג על חורבן בית המקדש.
So for centuries, Jews who are really, really deserving of that label yerei shamayim, it's something we all aspire to b'ezrat Hashem, have lived their whole lives responding to churban. But what does that mean? It means that we're supposed to be, if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, we're supposed to be walking around depressed, rachmana litzlan, 24/7? So the Mishnah Berurah on that seif in Shulchan Aruch comments, אבל התורה והתפילה יהיה בשמחה. The awareness and the involvement with tzara doesn't preclude simultaneously genuine simcha. It doesn't preclude a simcha which which emerges from from genuine sources. So the same yerei shamayim who's מיצר ודואג על החורבן, but but that involvement with churban doesn't diminish the simcha of talmud Torah, doesn't diminish the simcha of of of the privilege of being omeid bitfilah. And by extension, the Gemara in Berachos speaks about the measure of an adam gadol that he's samei'ach b'mitzvos. And and it doesn't preclude simultaneously a person, I think the mashal is, I don't know, some people, I'm not amongst them, like roller coasters. So if you ever sort of watch and hear the sound effects of someone on on a roller coaster, so they're screaming. They're screaming, they're simultaneously terrified and thrilled. It's it's both. It's both. There is a capacity to experience simcha without without disconnecting from tzara. That there's a capacity to be involved with, identified, responding to tzara without suppressing simcha. We have that dialectical capacity. Why does the Mechaber attribute this hanhaga, this behavior, this focus on on churban, why does he attribute it to a yerei shamayim? Different categories of individuals. When the Mechaber recommends something, sometimes he says something is for baal nefesh. And here he says it's for a yerei shamayim. So perhaps, perhaps it's because yirah is often associated with middas hadin. We our response of yirah to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is often engendered by encountering middas hadin. And when we encounter a middas harachamim, so then it's more of a reaction of ahava. The churban in the context of which the Mechaber is talking about means that there's an ongoing middas hadin, there's an ongoing middas hadin that that we face, that we're still in this state of churban. So maybe that's the So difficult or so difficult for us to relate to, but that there's an ongoing middas hadin over the course of this past year, that is something we all can relate to and the Mechaber's mandate of ראוי לכל ירא שמים and and that's again, that's a designation that we all aspire to, to be a yerei shamayim. The Mechaber's mandate that ראוי לכל ירא שמים sheyehei meitzer vedo'eig. What are those two verbs, meitzer vedo'eig? Meitzer means about what happened; a person is aggrieved, a person is pained about what happened, and do'eig, a person has is concerned and has anxiety about the future. So ראוי לכל ירא שמים, we're entering a season of, the Rambam paraphrases the Gemara Rosh Hashanah as to why we don't say Hallel on the Yamim Noraim, that they're yemei yirah vafachad, not days of simcha yeseira, they're days of yirah vafachad. It's it's a time when when above and beyond the rest of the year, we're focused on yirah and that yirah needs to translate into being aware and cognizant of the middas hadin and to respond accordingly. But to recognize that dialectically it doesn't preclude simcha, it doesn't preclude the simcha of encountering Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And the truth is that even even in the in the depths of tzarah there's always there's always a nechamah, there's always a kernel of simcha because the the tzaros that Klal Yisrael experience are unparalleled. And they're unparalleled because of our special relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, because Hakadosh Baruch Hu expects more from us. So even even in a time of tzarah there's there's a source of of chizuk. So haleivai that we should be able to combine this dialectical approach of yes, maintaining the simcha, simcha in Torah, simcha in tefillah, simcha in mitzvos, simchas hachayim, and at the same time to be meitzer vedo'eig and to continue our effort unabated עד שיחוננו עד שירוחמנו.