Our learning of Mesillat Yesharim on Thursdays this year, where the Mesillat Yesharim notes in the Hakdama that he doesn't propose to say Devarim Mechudashim but just Devarim Yeduim, but as well known as they are, shekach hahelem vehashikchah. So I'd like to review again Devarim Yeduim lakol in connection with Chanukah, but as Mesillat Yesharim says, sometimes there's an inverse relationship between how yaduah it is and how much attention we pay to it. Yosef mentioned earlier the Gemara that questions why we say she'asah nissim every night, why don't we just say she'asah nissim the first night? And the Gemara answers because in every night it-ra-chish nissin. Okay. Now she'asah nissim again, even the ro'eh can say it every night. So some birkas ha-ro'eh there's a din that a certain amount of time has to elapse. Some birkas ha-ro'eh is only the first time in your life you see something. Sometimes there's a certain period of time has to elapse, whether it's thirty days. And sometimes very little time has to elapse if you see lightning, as long as it's a new storm. So it could be that all the Gemara is saying is that the birkas ha-ro'eh of she'asah nissim of Chanukah, let's say, is similar to it's a new storm. A new night is analogous to a new storm. And on one level, maybe that's takeh the p'shat in the Gemara. On another level, it's yaduah that the Sfas Emes quotes several times from the Chidushei HaRim that the Chidushei HaRim said that עד שתכלה רגל מן השוק, so ke-darko bakodesh Chidushei HaRim explained עד שתכלה רגל לשון הרגל, that the idea of Chanukah is his-chad-shus, and עד שתכלה רגל מן השוק means a person has to light the Chanukah that it should burn until it burns away all vestiges of hergel, all vestiges of just acting simply mitzvas anashim melumadah, just out of habit, ad she-tichleh, עד שתכלה רגל מן השוק. Now, the Chidushei HaRim obviously doesn't mean that habit doesn't have its place in life. It certainly does. For instance, the Rambam writes at the end of perek aleph of Hilchos De'os that how does a person get himself, how does he internalize the middle middah of all the middos? So the Rambam says that a person has to make conscious efforts, and through making these conscious efforts he develops the habits, and these habits create the reality of being in the middle path. So obviously we're not talking about that habits are bad. To have a habit to wake up on time for tefillah b'tzibbur, to have a habit that one trains oneself that one is very makpid on one's time. So obviously habits are good. What the Chidushei HaRim is talking about is in terms of attitudes. That when he talks about hergel, he means hergel when a person wakes up in the morning and it's just another day of the same old routine. Hergel on that level, on the level of attitude, of approach, of perspective where there's no hislavus, there's no kavanah, there's no excitement. That's what the Chidushei HaRim is talking about. Now how does Chanukah represent the antithesis of hergel? How is it that by being mekayem the mitzvah of Ner Chanukah it's mesugal that we should be able to internalize this quality of his-chad-shus? So the Sfas Emes also ke-darko bakodesh everything is in counted words, the Sfas Emes seems to explain as follows. If a person has that attitude of hergel, and hergel means you see everything is the same, there's no excitement, you don't see anything new, everything is the same, so that it be perhaps... but it very quickly metamorphoses into a hashkafas olam. Because what it does is it reinforces a perspective of seeing everything just on the level of teva. If there's nothing new and there's no hitchadshus, so then again, what that leads to is again, the same way there's nothing new, I wake up to my same routine every day. There's nothing new in the world, there's nothing new in the world, so then one just sees the world as running on automatic pilot and it reinforces a perspective of teva. That being the case, so then it becomes obvious how the Chanukah representing the nes of the Menorah in the Beis Hamikdash is the antithesis of that, and how it becomes the symbol of emunah and the antithesis of this philosophy of hergel, not just this mindset, but a mindset which then yields a whole philosophy of hergel. Now, as basic and as obvious as this is, and I think as well known and understood as it is, and yet, sometimes you hear people say, well, right now so-and-so, a certain relative is unemployed, but it's a cycle, it's a downturn in the economy and it's a cycle, and as the economy picks up, so I'm sure he'll find a job. You hear people talk about the matzav in Eretz Yisroel and say that there's no room for really hope, there's no room for optimism because there are no solutions. No solutions, the status quo is no good, there's no one to make peace with, there are no solutions. But when you hear these kinds of comments, so it means that as much as we know the Chiddushei HaRim's Torah on Chanukah, that we don't think that way. If a person is unemployed, so it's not as simple as well it happened b'derech hateva and it's reversed b'derech hateva. A person is not supposed to think of it on that level. And in Eretz Yisroel, if again, ein hachi nami, if we don't see where the yeshuah comes from, but hayad Hashem tiktzar? And it's a yesod gadol b'chayim to maintain again this awareness, this attitude of hitchadshus. Again, an attitude of hitchadshus not only that a person wakes up with a hislavus every morning, but he wakes up with a hislavus every morning because nothing is old, nothing is stale, because the Ribbono Shel Olam is מחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית. It's not just that the world continues, gets older and older and more stale and more stale, but the Ribbono Shel Olam is mechadesh b'tuvo. The Ribbono Shel Olam is mechadesh b'tuvo, a person wakes up with hislavus and the person never, a person can't say well, now's a downturn in the economy and later there'll be an upturn and everything takes care of itself. The other practical area, halacha l'ma'aseh as it were, of where the hashkafas olam of hergel often encroaches and where a person has to make sure that he has the hashkafas olam of the Torah of hitchadshus is that certainly it's the case that we're supposed to be practical. אין סומכין על הנס means we're supposed to be practical. Yet it's sometimes a person finds himself in a situation where there's no p'sharah shlishis between what's practical and what's right. A person has a job, he's dependent upon this job to pay the rent, and the boss tells him to pad the bill. When you send the bill to the client, So so you worked four hours so you'll tell him that you worked seven hours and and you'll pad the bill. And and he doesn't he has no the job prospects are are not good. The job market is is very depressed. And if he'll and if he'll resist then he's going to lose his job. So yeah, we're supposed to be practical. We're supposed to be practical. But if there's an and if there's an hashkafas olam of hergel so I'm not sure what the right answer is. Maybe maybe that's what a person has to do. But if there's an hashkafas olam of hischadshus so then there can't be any question that what a person has to do is what's right. Aye, but it's not it doesn't seem practical. It isn't practical, it is impractical. So it's true, whenever a person can reconcile the two so then we're supposed to reconcile the two. That's part of taking human initiative. But what the hashkafas olam of hischadshus as opposed to hergel tells us is that when there's no kosuv hashlishi between what's right and what's practical, so then a person does what's right and השלך על השם יהבך. And there's just countless, countless occasions in life when one has to keep keep this in mind. It's a big nisayon to maintain the hashkafas olam of hischadshus. Hashkafas olam of hischadshus again that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is hamamtzi kol nimtza. And everything which happens ultimately, ultimately comes from Ribono Shel Olam. It's a big nisayon to to keep that to keep that in mind. A, if a person hasn't trained himself to recognize when when it's given to us to recognize the Yad Hashem and hashgacha, so it's not necessarily intuitive. As obvious as it is once a person realizes it, it's not intuitive initially. And number two, because we have a chiyuv to make hishtadlus, so that almost you know almost works at cross purposes and it certainly magnifies the nisayon of of keeping this keeping this in mind. Now let's talk about not so much the hashkafas olam of hischadshus, but maybe just for a brief moment the mindset and the character trait of hischadshus. How does a person maintain that? How does a person maintain it? So the Sfas Emes comments that where there's mora, there's hischadshus. What does he mean? So presumably he means as follows. Imagine, imagine the the plight of the American soldiers now who are in in Baghdad or any of the other Iraqi cities. So they know that that at any moment danger lurks. So you never let down your your guard. You never say well every day we're we're careful for car bombs, so enough already. For five days there hasn't been a car bomb. No, where there's mora, so it never gets stale. Right? It's never there's always that sense of of being on guard, of being on alert. So where there's mora, there's hischadshus. If a person genuinely feels, this lichora is what the Sfas Emes is telling us. To the extent that that a person genuinely feels the mora shamayim, the mora shamayim which the Rema quotes from from the Rambam and in the beginning of Orach Chayim the Rema quotes about the mora shamayim which is engendered by realizing that מלא כל הארץ כבודו, so then that generates a sense of hischadshus in a person. A person can't be stale, can't lose his drive in avodas Hashem when he has an acute sense of mora. Other sources of hischadshus, certainly a ben Torah, a ben yeshiva who spends many hours a day in learning, so that is also a tremendous source of of hischadshus. אין בית המדרש בלא חידוש means that even if you're learning even if for some reason you already learned Shabbos, so what you find is you think that that when you learn something for the second time it's going to be easier, you're not going to have to work as hard, and that's never the case because what you realize is that as much as you understood the first time around, there was so much that you couldn't even recognize, so many questions that you didn't even understand enough to even recognize. So Talmud Torah, being involved in Talmud Torah is also a source of hischadshus. And finally, really what the ultimate source of hischadshus, and this encompasses the other two, how does a person again always retain that sense of freshness, of hislahavus, of drive? How does a person, how does a person retain it? So what's the source of hischadshus in the world? Besides Torah, besides Yirah, or more precisely something which encompasses those two? So the source of hischadshus in the world is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Why? Because whatever exists in time ages, it gets old, and there isn't hischadshus. There isn't hischadshus. The Ribono Shel Olam, who's eternal, so eternal just doesn't mean, sometimes we think of eternity as being just a very, very long time, right? A hundred years is a long time, and a thousand years, imagine someone exceeding even Methuselah's lifespan, is an even longer time. So eternity is an even longer time. No, obviously, obviously the pshat in eternity is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu exists above time, Hakadosh Baruch Hu exists beyond time, which means that ultimately to the extent that a person forges a kesher with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so in the Shir HaYichud which we say Yom Kippur night after we finish Maariv, the Selichos and Maariv, so we describe Hakadosh Baruch Hu as that there's no seivah lifanav, that there's no age, because Hakadosh Baruch Hu exists above time. If He exists above time, so that relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the ultimate source of hischadshus. Coming back to the Gemara of the saying She'asa Nissim every night, so maybe the teretz is that davka on Chanukah, maybe what the Gemara means on another level, that the reason you can make a Birkas HaRoeh on Ner Chanukah night after night after night after night is that the whole mahuss of the Ner Chanukah is the hischadshus. So it's not something you just saw, it's something brand new, and therefore a person can say with tremendous hislahavus as though he hasn't seen, he hasn't seen a Ner Chanukah, he can say the She'asa Nissim again. אם אשכחך ירושלים תשכח ימיני תשכח תשכח ימיני תשכח ימיני תדבק לשוני לחכי אם לא אזכרכי אם לא אזכרכי אם לא אעלה את ירושלים על ראש שמחתי