Transcript

The Torah describes that after Noah and family exit the Teva that ויחל נח איש האדמה ויטע כרם. The question what the word Vayachel means is a matter of some dispute amongst the meforshim. So Rashi for instance says that asah atzmo chulin. He debased himself by engaging in something which was unbecoming. The Sforno has a very remarkable comment what you have in front of you here.

ויחל נח התחיל בפועל בלתי נאות ולכן נמשכו מזה מעשים אשר לא יעשו כי מעט מן הקיומנו מעט מן הקלקול בהתחלה יסובב הרבה ממנו בסוף.

So the Sforno says that Vayachel is from lashon hatchala to begin and it means that Noah began, he set in motion a process which culminates of course with what his son Cham perpetrates. But Vayachel is lashon hatchala in the sense that a small miscue, a small misdeed says the Sforno often will set into motion, will trigger a chain of events that culminates in something much more significant, something much more momentous. And this itself, skipping a few words at the end of the second line here, הורה ואמר ויחל העם לזנות. At the end of Parshat Balak where the Torah describes that vayachel ha'am liznot they began to engage in promiscuous behavior and then this ultimately results even in avoda zara. Sforno is telling us something very very an important yesod in life. Sometimes we sort of bracket our actions as though they're self-contained, as though they're compartmentalized. Okay, whatever I do now is okay, so that's what I did at 8:05 on Tuesday night and at 8:10 I'll do something else. And the Sforno says that's not the way the dynamic of life operates. Vayachel Noach what happened subsequently began now. The shikrut the intoxication and then what Cham does to Noah all of that began now with the mistaken priorities of planting the vineyard. Could be that the Ibn Ezra has this in mind as well. If you take a look in the Ibn Ezra on the second line, the line beginning Ish ha'adama, midway through the line he says והדרש חז"ל אמרו בבראשית רבה שביום שנטעו שתה ממנו, which literally translates that on the day Noah planted the vineyard that it bore fruit, it bore grapes that very same day and on that very same day he drank and became intoxicated. So the Ibn Ezra says יש לו סוד ואיננו כמשמעו. Chazal didn't intend this to be taken literally. So what does it mean? So possibly what the Ibn Ezra has in mind is what the Sforno says that ביום שנטעו שתה ממנו that when did Noah set in motion that process, when did he start going along the course of action which resulted in the intoxication? It didn't happen out of nowhere, it didn't happen yesh me-ayin on the day that Noah began to drink. It began with the planting. How much harm can there be in in looking once? Whatever the whatever the decision is that may be before us, so the Sforno teaches us that it has to when we assess what's what's appropriate, what's inappropriate, we have to recognize that anything and everything we do is not self-contained, not compartmentalized. Everything sets a process in motion. Now again the process is not inexorable, Noach didn't lose his bechira, he could have he could have reversed course. But the point is that he was at a crossroads. If you're at a crossroads, so then and you make the wrong turn, you do still have the ability, you still have the bechira to to correct course, but the point is that if you don't, so then you'll trace back. All my problems happened when I made that right instead of going straight. All my problem happened when I went straight instead of turning to the left, instead of turning to the right. And and takeh again, that's what the Ibn Ezra means: שביום שנטע שסר מיינו. That's when Noach cast the die. Noach cast the die for his for his shikrus and everything that happened as a result when he went and he and he planted the vineyard. I don't know why the Sforno doesn't doesn't make this association for us. It seems like a very natural association with the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot that you have underneath the Ibn Ezra, so Ben Azzai omer: הוי רץ למצוה קלה כבחמורה ובורח מן העבירה. A person should pursue any mitzvah, even if it seems to be a mitzvah, as it were, of lesser importance. And a person should should run away, should flee from any aveira: שמצוה גוררת מצוה ועבירה גוררת עבירה. Meaning the mishnah is making exactly this point: that a person should realize that what's at stake in my doing this one mitzvah, now, that has the potential to put me on course for many many mitzvos. But the the opposite rachmana litzlan is also true. One aveira can can set me on on a path which leads rachmana litzlan to many other aveiros and a person when he's boreach min ha'aveira has to realize that what what he, she is is running away from is not just this one instance of aveira. If you take a look at the Rabbeinu Yonah here, v'achar Ben Azzai, beginning in the second line of the of the paragraph that you have in front of you:

ואחר בן עזאי הוסיף טעם אחר ואמר הוי רץ למצוה קלה ובורח מן העבירה שמצוה גוררת מצוה מכח הטבע.

Mitzvah goreret mitzvah is not some kind of supernatural reward that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is bestowing. It's something that happens naturally. It's it's part of the the natural cause and effect. כי בעשות האדם מצוה קטנה פעם אחת. Person does one little mitzvah. One little mitzvah. I don't know, maybe a person holds the door open for someone else. A person says one bracha with with kavana instead of saying that bracha by rote: כי בעשות האדם מצוה קטנה פעם אחת. One little mitzvah, once, says Rabbeinu Yonah, הוא מתקרב אל השם. A person takes a step closer thereby kaveiyachol to Hakadosh Baruch Hu ומרגיל את רוחו לעבודתו and trains himself, herself, habituates himself, herself la'avodaso to the service of Hakadosh Baruch Hu and therefore mimmela nekla be'einav, it becomes easier for him לעשות מצוה אחרת שיש בה טורח כנגד הראשונה. Now the person's in a different place. Having become closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu through the first mitzvah, so a person is in a different place, has a different perspective when the next mitzvah comes comes their way. When the next mitzvah comes their way, so then the person is going to be will undertake that. that mitzvah more readily מפני שכבר הורגל טבעו למלאכת המצוה because he, the person has habituated himself, herself to the mitzvah. Rabbeinu Yonah explains similarly, if you take a look in the paragraph beginning Veha'aveira Goreres Aveira, so Rabbeinu Yonah says גם זה מן הטבע. This too again we're not talking about the supernatural punishment. אחר שעשה עבירה אחת ונסתר מעבודת השם יתברך if a person does one aveira so a person as it were turns his back, her back on Hakadosh Baruch Hu, distances himself, herself from Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

כי תבוא לידו עבירה אחרת אף כי אין היצר מתגבר עליו כבראשונה יעשנה.

Maybe the yetzer hara for the second aveira isn't as great but then a person, it's become already more habitual to do aveiros, so the person will succumb even to the lesser yetzer hara the second time. כי כבר הורגל ליצר ותוקף עליו. What's so remarkable about this Rabbeinu Yonah, Rabbeinu Yonah speaks about hergel, right? He speaks about margil atzmo even by doing something once. If a person does something once, we think of hergel, okay, a person becomes addicted, that means I do it time and time and time again. I do it once, it's nothing. Says Rabbeinu Yonah, no, hergel is developed incrementally, and even once, even one instance already creates a measure of hergel. Doing something once, he's not equating doing something once with doing it ten times, but doing something once already creates a measure of hergel, there's already an element of habit, of habituation which will affect how the person responds to the next, the next challenge, the next encounter. And that's exactly the same yesod as the Sforno of Vayachel Noach. Noach began along a certain course. What we do isn't self-contained, it's not compartmentalized, everything has a ripple effect, everything generates momentum, everything pushes us in a certain direction. Again, it's not irreversible, it's not inexorable, but we need to recognize the significance of every single action. How did this happen? Noach was such a tzaddik tamim. He was able to cultivate that tzidkus, that tmimus despite the fact that the entire world around him was evil. Such a tzaddik tamim that he merited being saved, so how does Noach end up engaged in such behavior? So there's a very important principle of interpretation that we need to be aware of whenever we try to tackle such a question, whether it's the question at hand, whether it's trying to understand in the beginning of Parshas Vayeishev the story of Yosef and the brothers, the Shivtei Kah, the brothers they hate, what is that all about? Yaakov Avinu seems to be, Yaakov Avinu who's the Bechira Avos, who's greater according to Chazal than even Avraham and Yitzchak, so Yaakov Avinu plays favorites amongst his children? So what does all that mean? So we're supposed to try to understand the Chumash, but in so doing, we're supposed to recognize that we're understanding it on our level. That doesn't really correspond to what's happening on Yaakov Avinu's level, what was happening on the level of Yosef and the brothers, what's happening on Noach's level, but if the Torah tells us the story, so there's something for us to learn, there's something for us to gain on our level, but we're supposed to recognize that the lessons we're learning, it's not necessarily that that's what's happening. That what we can relate to is that that's what's happening with Yaakov and his sons. Yaakov wasn't, Yaakov didn't need to read books on parenting, Yaakov understood full well that you don't play favorites amongst the children, so what's going on there that he makes Yosef the kesones passim? We don't know. But on our level, there's a lesson to be derived that a parent is not supposed to show favoritism to one child amongst others. So what we're going to try to interpret here in the story of Noach doesn't claim to say what actually is happening with Noach. It's not the, it's not a chapter to be contributed to a biography of Noach, but it's how the story filters down to us, what we learn from the story. If you turn the page on the second side here, if you see after the lines that branch out to the right around seven lines down,

אמר רבי יצחק יצרו של אדם מתחדש עליו בכל יום.

The Yetzer hara that entices a person to sin, that entices a person to be overly unduly involved with the material, with the physical, מתחדש עליו בכל יום, is rejuvenated every day. It doesn't become stale. Let's say if a store has the same sale every day, day in day out, week in week out, so it's maybe the first day that the item is on sale, so it's enticing, it's an attraction, but if it's the same sale, the same product being offered day after day, it's not enticing anymore. So one would have thought that the Yetzer hara is the same products, same enticements. One would have thought that the offerings of the Yetzer hara would become stale and that it would become less and less enticing. So say Chazal, that's not the case. יצרו של אדם מתחדש עליו בכל יום. The Yetzer hara, there's a freshness to what the Yetzer hara offers us every day. The Yetzer hara becomes rejuvenated every day. How should we understand that? So Koheles tells us a major principle of הקדוש ברוך הוא'ס בריאה. Koheles tells us that זה לעומת זה עשה אלוקים. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world with symmetry, he created the world with balance. Chazal tell us, the Rambam summarizes it, it's actually at the part of the Rambam which goes over to the third side, the second page. If you take a look at the top of the page, אפילו עבר כל ימיו. Rambam's talking about the possibility of doing Tshuva. Even if a person's whole life the person was sinning, אפילו עבר כל ימיו ועשה תשובה ביום מותו, and it's only on the day of death, Rachmana litzlan, on the day of death the person does Tshuva, U'mes bitshuvoso, but then dies having done Tshuva, Kol avononav nimechalim, all the person's sins are forgiven. So you see a person can live seventy years, can live a life of sin for seventy years, eighty years, ninety years, however long it is, and he still has the capacity to do Tshuva. No matter how much water there is under the bridge, no matter how much negative momentum there is, no matter how mired in Cheit the person is, the person has a Koach of what? Of Hischadshus. He has a Koach of renewal. A person can change, a person can overcome all that, a person can reverse all that. But זה לעומת זה עשה אלוקים. despair, which is why a person always has hope and always has the ability to change and improve. But זה לעומת זה עשה אלקים that also means that a person can be a tzaddik for 70, 80 years and then can fall, because זה לעומת זה עשה אלקים. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu is gonna give us that koach to change so that we can redeem ourselves even at the last moment, so זה לעומת זה עשה אלקים means that a person can never lock himself, herself into a safe place. Even a Noach, even a Noach who achieves a madreiga of tzaddik tamim that he merits being saved, even a Noach can fall, because if he wouldn't have the potential to fall, then we wouldn't have the potential to redeem ourselves and to be mischadesh through teshuva. There is something here which seems somewhat paradoxical, but when we think about it a little bit, it's not really so. When does Noach fall? After spending the year in the teiva. What was he doing during that year in the teiva? So at Hakadosh Baruch Hu's command, he was basically 24/7 as a zookeeper. He was dealing with a meshugeneh ari who if he was late with the Cheerios for breakfast attacked him. He was dealing with a meshugeneh oiv who was jealous and paranoid. So Noach spends the year in the teiva engaged in tremendous avodas Hashem. He achieves an even higher madreiga than he was on when he entered the teiva as a tzaddik tamim, and then of all times, then of all times he falls. So the understanding is as follows, listen carefully. After we do something good, say we had a really good day, the day was very productive, we were very sensitive in our bein adam l'chavero, davened very well, used our time appropriately, so a person should have the sense of sipuk hanefesh. A person should have the sense of satisfaction, because that sense of satisfaction will give a person chizuk to continue. I can do this, look, I was successful today. If I was successful today, I can be successful tomorrow as well. It's a source of chizuk, it's a source of inspiration. Just the other day, I heard someone quote that Rav Soloveitchik commented very beautifully that in Breishis after Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates everything וירא אלקים כי טוב, וירא אלקים כי טוב. So why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu have to look back? Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there was a question that maybe what Hakadosh Baruch Hu had done wasn't tov, he has to review it to see whether it was tov? So the Rav said that the Torah describes Hakadosh Baruch Hu in human terms so that we'll know what to emulate. And the Torah's telling us that a person takeh should take stock of what he did, what he accomplished, and should recognize the tov. It's important. It serves as a source of chizuk and inspiration moving forward. But all that notwithstanding, there's a very tenuous line that can become blurred between a sense of sipuk hanefesh which serves as a source of chizuk and inspiration and a sense of smugness and complacency. A person maybe that sipuk hanefesh can have a tinge of a sense of superiority, maybe... When I get up to daven, so I daven well, I don't really have to exert myself to focus, I'm on a roll. I daven bekavana. Sipuk hanefesh can, can cross the line and turn into smugness and can create a sense of complacency. And that's why what seems paradoxical is so true, that it's precisely after a person attains a madrega in avodas Hashem, after a person has a good day, after a person deals with a challenge and rises to the occasion, that davka then a person has to be careful not to have, has to be extra careful not to have a nefila. It's davka after that year of incredible avoda and exertion in the teiva, it's davka then that Noah is especially vulnerable to a nefila, and that's taka what happens, ויחל נח איש האדמה. Okay, let's shift to something else. The next source that you have in front of you here, the Rambam in perek alef of hilchos avoda zara gives us a history of how avoda zara appeared in the world. And he describes בימי אנוש טעו בני האדם טעות גדולה, that in the generation of Enosh, people made a tremendous blunder. ונבערה עצת חכמי אותו הדור and their counsel became, became they became ignorant. ואנוש עצמו מן הטועים היה and Enosh himself was, it wasn't just that it was in his day, but he himself also blundered. Vezo haysa ta'asam: they reasoned as follows:

הואיל וברא אלהים כוכבים אלו וגלגלים להנהיג את העולם ונתנם במרום.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the stars, He created the spheres, and the spheres are responsible for the planetary motion, and He put them up in the heavens וחלק להם כבוד והם שמשים המשמשים לפניו, and they are executing, implementing His will. שראויים הם לשבחם ולפארם ולחלוק להם כבוד. So we should revere them, we should direct acts of worship towards them.

וזהו רצון האל ברוך הוא לגדל ולכבד מי שגדלו וכבדו.

So that's the first stage of avoda zara. The second paragraph, the Rambam continues, I think that maybe this is halacha beis, the Rambam continues and says אחר שארכו הימים after much time elapsed with people engaged in this sort and stage of avoda zara עמדו בפני אדם נביאי שקר וסם שלטון, some charlatans arose, false prophets, and they claimed that it was not only their human reasoning that this was the right thing to do, but that Hakadosh Baruch Hu had told them that He wants them to worship such and such a star. Subsequently the Rambam says that אחר והתחילו כוזבים אחרים, line six, other fakers, other liars began to say lamad velomar that they received their prophecy from the star, from the sphere, from the angel. וכיון שארכו הימים, as the Rambam says line eight, as time passed, נשתכח השם הנכבד והנורא מפי כל היקום. Hakadosh Baruch Hu was forgotten. Velo hikiruhu and almost no one, almost no one knew Hakadosh Baruch Hu anymore. The world descended into crude polytheism. And then the Rambam says aval tzur haolamim, right, we're two lines from the end of the paragraph, tzur haolamim, Hakadosh Baruch Hu,

לא היה שום אדם שהיה מכירו ולא יודעו אלא יחידים בעולם.

There were only very few isolated. isolated individuals who knew that there was an Hashem, who knew that there was a Borei Olam

כגון חנוך ומתושלח נח שם ועבר. ועל דרך זה היה העולם הולך ומתגלגל,

and the world was on this downward spiral until amuda shelaolam, until the pillar of the world was born, vehu Avraham Avinu. So there's something absolutely remarkable about this history that the Rambam sketched for us. Look especially again at those last two lines that we just read.

אבל צור העולמים לא היה שם אדם שהיה מכירו ולא יודעו אלא יחידים בעולם כגון חנוך ומתושלח נח שם ועבר ועל דרך זה היה העולם הולך ומתגלגל עד שנולד עמודו של עולם.

What's so remarkable is not something the Rambam says, it's something the Rambam doesn't say. I think we would have thought, if we were asked to sort of reconstruct what must have happened, we would have said that when the Mabbul happened, so that was like pressing a reset button. After the Mabbul, it has to be that not only Noach and Shem recognize Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but it has to be that Yafet and Cham and their wives recognize Hakadosh Baruch Hu also. But then maybe history repeated itself. But the Rambam doesn't say that. The Rambam says it was one continuous downward spiral. Nothing changed with the Mabbul. Shem, excuse me, Yafet and Mrs. Yafet, Cham and Mrs. Cham came out of the Teivah the same way they went into the Teivah. It's absolutely mind-boggling. There was no reset button. The Mabbul didn't affect them. The world was destroyed. Noach was telling everyone, his sons and daughters-in-law were also aware of it, he was building a Teivah for 120 years and he was telling everyone the Ribbono Shel Olam is going to destroy the world because the world is so evil. And then the nevuah materializes and nothing. And ועל דרך זה היה העולם הולך ומתגלגל, there was this continuous downward spiral which began bimei Enosh and it went continuously until Avraham Avinu and the Mabbul did not have the effect of pressing a reset button. How is that possible? How is it possible to see the whole world destroyed and nothing, and no change? And takeh we see in the Chumash that the Rambam is clearly assuming like some meforshim say explicitly that Noach's children were saved not in their own merit but in his merit. So that's why there's no assumption that Yafet and Cham and their wives were noble people. They were saved in the merit of Noach. So they went into the Teivah, those two couples went into the Teivah and came out of the Teivah the same people. And takeh we see from what Cham does afterwards that the same rasha he was when he went into the Teivah, he was the same rasha when he came out of the Teivah. How is that possible? How is it possible to see the entire world destroyed and to be unaffected? So when I first noticed this, I just, I don't know, it's like your mind shuts down, you can't process it. It's just so overwhelming. How is it possible? But then you begin to think maybe what the Rambam's describing here is not so far from us. Maybe it's something that takeh we know from recent history as well. How much did the world change because of the Holocaust? I don't mean politically. So again, on a natural level, obviously politically, hakamas hamedinah is in response to the Holocaust. But religiously, spiritually, how much does the world change? So maybe what the Rambam's describing is not that mind-boggling when you think about it, but maybe it's not so alien to us. Maybe something cataclysmic can happen, something catastrophic can happen, and we remain unchanged. Mishna Pirkei Avos says, Hillel used to say אם אין אני לי מי לי. But what does that mean? So Rabbeinu Yonah comments both on the Mishna and in Shaarei Teshuva. Here you have what Rabbeinu Yonah says on Mishna Pirkei Avos.

הוא היה אומר אם אין אני לי מי לי אם לא אוכיח עצמי שאזרז עצמי במצות מי לי להוכיח ולזרזני.

If I won't rebuke myself, if I won't urge myself to act, to change, to improve, to do, מי לי להוכיח ולזרזני? So who can do it? Ziruz acheirim, yes, others, they can cajole me, they can urge me, tov lefi sha'ah, momentarily it's good, but it doesn't last. What only thing that lasts and he says it in Shaarei Teshuva, maybe even a little bit sharper the formulation.

ביאור הדבר אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו מה יועילו המוסרים.

We can go and we can hear a mussar shmuess. We can go and we can hear divrei hisorerus. We can go to a kumzitz and feel at the moment very inspired, but says Rabbeinu Yonah if a person doesn't take ownership and responsibility to act on himself, to be responsible for himself, the person says no I'll go here I'll go here what I'll go here what this person's got to say, I'll go I'll expose myself to listen to hear to the experience but a person doesn't take ownership of it. אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו if a person won't arouse himself, ma yo'ilu hamussarim? What we hear from others is not going to benefit him. כי אף על פי שנכנסים בלבו ביום שמעו, yes it enters one's mind, one's heart on the day that one hears it, ישכחם היצר ויעבירם מלבו. But it goes in one ear and if a person doesn't take responsibility for it, it goes out the other ear. We can witness something, we can hear something and it shakes us. But when you shake you stay in the same position. Other people can shake us. We can be shaken up by something we read, something we hear, a thought that someone else shares with us, but we're not going to move. No one else is going to move us. A person אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו so it doesn't matter what the external force is. External forces don't move us. A person only it has to be an internal engine that gets a person to move. אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו ma yo'ilu hamussarim and the mussar may be the mabbul. The mussar may be the mabbul. But אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו but if you don't go to sleep every night in the teivah thinking what's happening, what are its implications, what's the message to me as to how I have to live my life, so then you come out of the teivah the same person you went into the teivah. You can go into the teivah Cham and come out of the teivah the same Cham because אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו מה יועילו המוסרים. The Rambam continues and I apologize you don't have this in front of you, I forgot to ask for that part. The Rambam continues describing how Avraham Avinu didn't have any contact with even those individuals who were still alive. Avraham Avinu's lifetime overlaps with that of Noach, Shem, and Ever, but apparently they lived in different parts of Bavel or wherever it was. Avraham Avinu wasn't exposed to them. The Rambam describes how Avraham Avinu was mushka be-Ur Kasdim, how he was wallowing in Ur Kasdim where everyone and he amongst them were ovdei avodah zarah. His father was an oved avodah zarah. Avraham Avinu was raised on that ideology, on idol worship, and he himself was mushka, but libo haya meshoteit, but his mind was wandering and he was restless and there was a tremendous independence of spirit until ultimately Avraham Avinu figures out and recognizes the emes. I don't know that there are any times in history that are ever as challenging as what Avraham Avinu had to deal with, to live amongst people where no one knows the truth, no one knows how to live, no one recognizes the Ribbono shel Olam and to have to recognize the truth all on one's own. I don't know whether that challenge ever gets replicated. But there are generations in which one lives in a society which is so confused and so mixed up that there's a me'ein of that challenge. We live in such a society. The Western world today, I don't know, maybe back in Greco-Roman times, maybe the Western world was as mixed up and messed up as it is today. I'm not sure, I don't think so. I think it's probably unprecedented in terms of just how confused the society as a whole is. Immorality is now society's morality and if a person has principles and a person subscribes to Torah morality which is traditional morality, so then the person is bigoted and intolerant. That's the world we live in. We all need a little bit to be a me'ein of Avraham Avinu and to be able to rise above the confusion, the societal confusion that surrounds us. The only thing that's wrong according to modern society in terms of morality is to say that some things are wrong. That's wrong. To say that certain types of behavior Hakadosh Baruch Hu said are wrong, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said is unacceptable, that's wrong. That's the only thing that's wrong, that's the only aveirah in modern society. So it's mamash a v'nahafoch hu, mamash a v'nahafoch hu. We need to call upon those koach that Avraham Avinu had. bequeathed to us to be able to rise above societal confusion. Maybe just one last observation from the parshiyos we've been reading in Sefer Bereishis. The last source that you have here on these two sheets. The second pasuk in the Torah:

והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשך על פני תהום ורוח אלהים מרחפת על פני המים.

So the peshuto shel mikra would seem to be that the Torah is describing the state of the world at the very beginning of the beriah. Right? At the very first stage of the beriah, so things were tohu vavohu. Chazal have a tradition that they share with us that the Torah is not just describing those first cosmic moments, but the Torah is describing different tekufos in history, different generations in history. So Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon in the first paragraph pashat kraya b'doros. Again, he interprets this pasuk, the description of tohu vavohu that it represents subsequent generations. תהו ובהו זה אדם הראשון שהיה ללמה ולא כלום. He didn't realize his potential.

ובהו זה קין שביקש להחזיר את העולם לתהו ובהו. וחשך זה דורו של אנוש

where the world descended into avodah zarah,

על שם והיו במחשך מעשיהם. על פני תהום זה דור המבול שנאמר ביום הזה נבקעו כל מעיינות תהום.

Skipping a line and a half: ויאמר אלהים יהי אור זה אברהם. And that's one pshat in Chazal on the והארץ היתה תהו ובהו. Take a look at the next paragraph. ריש לקיש פשט קראיה בגלויות. This pasuk foreshadows the whole course of history, the dalet galuyos, the dalet malchuyos who subjugate Klal Yisrael. והארץ היתה תהו זה גלות בבל. vavohu in the second line zeh galus Madai. v'choshech in the third line zeh galus Yavan. al pnei sehom, sorry, al pnei sehom the end of the third line

זה גלות ממלכת הרשעה. ורוח אלהים מרחפת זהו רוחו של מלך המשיח.

There's so much to elicit from these midrashim, but perhaps just one idea. Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows the future. Hakol tzafui, Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows the future. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu is poised kavyachol to create the world, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees. He sees the והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשך על פני תהום that's going to ensue. He sees that the world is going to be so wicked that he's going to have to destroy the whole world and only one Noach will merit being spared, and in his merit his family as well. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, but you know what? אף על פי כן, it's all worth it. It's all worth it because yehi or is going to be Avraham Avinu. There's going to be Avraham Avinu who has emunah and shares his emunah. There's going to be an Avraham Avinu who's going to be a pillar of chesed in the world. He's going to engage in ma'asei chesed. He's going to teach the world to engage in ma'asei chesed. And that clearly, clearly makes all the tohu vavohu v'choshech that has to be endured worth it. Similarly, the same perspective, the same idea emerges from the next midrash. How much suffering was endured, was experienced in galus Bavel, in galus Madai, in galus Yavan, and the fourth and last galuyos. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, but it's all worth it because ultimately when the Melech HaMashiach comes, so then the world knows Hakadosh Baruch Hu. What do we learn from this? The value of a mitzvah. The value of a mitzvah. And Avraham Avinu, one Avraham Avinu with his mitzvos, with his emunah makes all the tohu vavohu of Enosh and the dor hamabul worth it. It's all worth it, it's all outweighed by Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu is going to daven shacharis. It's all worth it. It's all worth it. The dor shel Enosh when a third of the world was destroyed, and the dor hamabul when the whole world is destroyed. It's all worth it. Avraham Avinu is going to daven shacharis. Avraham Avinu is going to be gomel chesed. Chazal say, and again this is on the same, let's keep in mind the principle we had before of sort of analyzing stories of the avos and the shivtei Kah on our own level, recognizing that that's not how they experienced them. But Chazal say, the posuk says וישמע ראובן ויצילהו מידם. Reuven hears the brothers plotting, conspiring to kill Yosef. So Vayatzilehu miyadam, he saves and says, no, השליכו אותו אל הבור הזה. Throw him into this pit. And what does Reuven have in mind? למען הצילו מידם להשיבו אל אביו. And the Torah tells us what Reuven is planning is, I'll get them to put him in the pit and then I'll distract them, I'll take him out of the pit and I'll return him to Yaakov Avinu. Chazal say that had Reuven known that this was going to be written in the Torah, so right away he would have taken Yosef on his shoulders and run home and brought him to Yaakov Avinu. So what does that mean? Had Reuven known he was going to make the headlines, he'd be on the front page of the Wall Street Journal? Is it kedai? So what does it mean? Whenever a person is weighing whether to do something, whether not to do it, so maybe we don't necessarily articulate this calculation for ourselves, maybe the deliberation isn't always conscious, but on some level we're sort of weighing the benefit of doing it to the exertion and the time that it's going to take to do it. If I have a quarter falls out of my pocket and eichshu it rolls underneath this shtender. So I have to, is it kedai? Maybe I'm going to hurt my back if I try to move the shtender for a quarter. Maybe I'll do it, maybe I don't do it. If there's a blank check for a million dollars underneath it, so eichshu I'll deal with my back, I'm going to move the shtender, I'm going to get the check for a million dollars. I'm not any stronger than if it was a quarter, but everything is a cost and benefit analysis. Kivayachol again, Chazal are analyzing Reuven on our level. Had Reuven realized just how choshuv, just how important the mitzvah he's doing was, so he wouldn't have hesitated, he wouldn't have delayed, he would have found a way to do it immediately and he would have found a way to overcome whatever obstacles there were and to do it immediately. The more we understand the chashivos of a mitzvah, so then the more motivated we are, the more energized we are, the more dedicated we are to carry out that mitzvah and to find a way to do it and to find a way to do it now. If we would recognize that an Avraham Avinu is going to daven shacharis, Avraham Avinu is going to have emunah in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and Avraham Avinu is going to do chesed, all of that makes everything else kedai. It makes the dor shel Enosh kedai. All of that is worth it for an Avraham Avinu because he'll דאווען שחרית אל המקום אשר עמד שם and he'll and he'll tell Yitzchak to daven Shachris and he'll have emuna ba'Hashem and he'll share that emuna ba'Hashem and he'll do chesed. If we would recognize just how choshuv that is, it would translate, again, into there would be an adrenaline rush every time we had an opportunity to do a mitzvah, every time we had a chance to say a tefilla. Thank you.