Transcript

At the end of the end of Parshat Shemini, so at the end of Parshat Shemini, it says in the Perek Yud-Aleph Sham Pasuk Mem-Dalet:

כי אני ה' אלוהיכם והתקדשתם והייתם קדושים כי קדוש אני ולא תטמאו את נפשותיכם בכל השרץ הרומש על הארץ. כי אני ה' המעלה אתכם מארץ מצרים להיות לכם לאלוהים והייתם קדושים כי קדוש אני.

The goal is that we should be kadosh. What does it mean to be kadosh? So throughout Chumash, the Sforno has a very consistent, emphatic approach, as he cites in one place based on a comment of Chazal in Masechet Sanhedrin, reading here initially from the end of Parshat Shemini: והייתם קדושים כי קדוש אני כדי שתהיו קדושים ונצחיים. Kedusha means nizchiut, means to be eternal. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu exhorts us, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says that the goal is that we should be kadoshim, means כדי שתהיו קדושים ונצחיים. Earlier at the beginning of Ma’achalot Assurot:

ובכן באותו מזגם שיהיה מוכן לאור באור החיים הנצחיים. וזה בתיקון המזונות והתולדה והסרת המאכלים המטמאים את הנפש במידות ובמושכלות כאומרו ונטמתם בם וכאומרו אל תשקצו את נפשותיכם וכאומרו ולא תטמאו את נפשותיכם בכל השרץ כי אני ה' המעלה אתכם מארץ מצרים להיות לכם לאלוהים והתקדשתם והייתם קדושים פירוש נצחיים מדמים לבורא יתברך כאומרו כי קדוש אני.

In Parshat Yitro, the Sforno says the same:

וגוי קדוש אתם תהיו ממלכת כוהנים וגוי קדוש. וגוי קדוש בלתי נפסדים.

Nifsadim in the sense of being destructible. So bilti nifsadim, not destructible.

אבל תהיו קיימים לעד כעניין כאומרו והיה הנשאר בציון והנותר בירושלים קדוש יאמר לו. ואמרו ז"ל בגמרא בסוף סנהדרין פרק חלק מה קדוש לעולם קיים אף הם לעולם קיימים.

And mention just one other case, whenever context in which the Sforno talks about it, this is not an exhaustive list. At the beginning of Parshat Kedoshim:

דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת אליהם קדושים תהיו כי קדוש אני ה' אלוהיכם. דבר אל כל העדה קדושים תהיו אחר שהשרה שכינתו בישראל לקדשם לחיי עולם כמו שהייתה הכוונה באומרו ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כוהנים וגוי קדוש. כל הכוונה בהם היא לחיי עולם בלבד כמו שביאר בסוף ואמר למען ירבו ימיכם כפי שהסברנו כבר.

The attainment of kedusha, of nitzchiyus, has a special emphasis as the psukim indicate as the Sforno underscores in terms of ma'achalos assuros, in terms of issurei biyah, and in those two areas of life, but it clearly also entails an overall orientation. We're supposed to live for nitzchiyus. We're supposed to live for nitzchiyus. Whenever a person enters a certain phase of life, so we always need to know what the goals are. Because you're going to college, so you need to identify what your goals are, what you want to attain, what you want to achieve by going through college. Otherwise, you're just on the treadmill, and the time passes, but the goal isn't necessarily achieved. And it's true, it's true for wherever, whenever a person is. Says the Sforno, so what's the goal for life be-chlal? Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu's goal for us in life is v'heyisem kedoshim, which means that we should attain, we should achieve nitzchiyus. If we return to the mashal, if one's goal in college is to go to medical school, so then that indicates what courses one takes and especially where one needs to excel. If the goal of life is the attainment of nitzchiyus, so that also dictates what the focus is supposed to be and where the emphasis is supposed to be placed. On one level, you can even say that the ultimate dialectic of life is that we live a physical existence, we live mundane realities and responsibilities, and yet the goal of that physical existence with its mundane realities and responsibilities is entirely spiritual, is nitzchiyus. And because of this dialectic, it creates a nisayon. Because we are supposed to attend, to whatever degree that they warrant and demand attention, we are supposed to attend to the mundane realities and responsibilities. It's easy to Again, what the broader context of that is supposed to be. It can be a struggle for young and restless, often vague and uncomfortable with ourselves, standing back side of on a subway with someone whose mundane realities are everything. But it's the goal overall. It's easy to be brought into that. It's easy to be mushpah. But once that the the ultimate goal of the other element of the nisayon at at your age is that emotionally, psychologically, when a person is young, so a person doesn't feel mortality. Obviously, intellectually, people know it, but emotionally, psychologically, young people don't don't feel it. Young people emotionally, psychologically, mortality. And and that complicates the nisayon of relating to the material, to the mundane, to the physical. The more of an emotional, psychological illusion there is of life as always continuing forever, continuing indefinitely, the harder it is to place the material, the physical, the mundane in its correct context and make sure that it doesn't overflow the boundaries which are supposed to contain it in our lives. If you want to get into medical school, so then every decision made as an undergraduate is made with that in mind. How does it look to the medical school if I take organic chemistry in summer school outside of my outside of my regular school? What what I do during the summer? And that's correct, that's how it should be if that's the goal and you're talking that that is the correct goal depending upon the individual. Everything has to be individualized. So then it taka should shape all decisions. It taka should provide a lens through which one views all decisions. The same is true if one's looking to law school, if one's looking to be a CPA, if one's looking to be an actuary. It doesn't make any difference with respect in terms of that dafka. But the same way that again, in a microcosmic sense, shapes every decision in an academic context, the goal of nitzchiyus should determine and dictate really every life decision, including that decision, including what my goals are in in every micro-context in terms of how I'm going to make hishtadlus, in terms of how I'm going to live as productively as possible. The world, the society in which we live is complicated and what word is used? We see olam hazeh as an extraordinary bracha and opportunity, but not to, not to amass wealth and not to, not for any other mundane, ultra-mundane physical, material goals, but as a bridge to chayei netzach. But the fact that it is the bridge, that we're surrounded by a world of people who are intoxicated with olam hazeh. The American dream is to be rich and famous and powerful and beautiful and all olam hazeh success in that, in that domain. We shouldn't be unaware of the nisayon that that creates for us in terms of retaining our focus. And the nisayon is greatest when you're young, when emotionally and psychologically you have the corrective, corrective force of the reality of feeling, of sensing that all the physical is just so ephemeral and so, so transient. Not only that that the goal of nitzchiyus should contextualize and frame everything we do. But everything we do should be calibrated initially with that in mind. What hishtadlus a person makes for parnassah, in what area, the lifestyle a person lives regardless of what his financial bracket is. Everything has to be calibrated in light of this ultimate goal. It's important to understand ultimately that focus, that preoccupation nitzchiyus ultimately is the source of the greatest simcha and sipuk hanefesh. But there is a, there is a transitional stage. of where a person does experience and needs to experience that he's sacrificing, that he's being moser nefesh. Ultimately, Chassidim anshei ma'aseh, gedolim u'kedoshim tehorim, they attain a madrega where if you ask them, how do you deprive yourself of all the comforts and how do you push yourself so much and rest as much as you need to but not more, relax as much as you need to but not more, how do you deprive yourself of all that? So they wouldn't say this out of their sensitivity bein adam lechavero, but if they wouldn't be so sensitive, they'd say, what are you crazy? How I should trade the mesikus of learning an extra hour of Torah? I should trade the being דבק בו ובתורתו בו יתברך for a shawarma? That's deprivation? That's not deprivation, it's facilitation. But there is a stage where there is a stage that a person has to go through to get there. And at that stage, it is chayei tza'ar tichyeh. There is a stage in which again, we're still sufficiently accustomed to, still sufficiently involved with ta'anugai olam hazeh that it's experienced as deprivation. I think they quote from one of the Gedolim who said rather self-deprecatingly—again, there's two halves to what he said, half is self-deprecation, half is the idea that we're talking about—he was comparing himself with a certain gvir and said that he doesn't know whose chelek, he doesn't know how to compare what their respective chalaka will be in Olam Haba, but this much he knows, that Olam Hazeh he has it better. That much he knows, that he sees already, that he experiences already, he doesn't have to, he's not totally on the lulai he'emanti. So when the Sforno tells us that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu is pushing, cajoling, exhorting, admonishing, v'hisem kedoshim, that you should be nitzchiyim, הכוונה בהם היא לחיי עולם, it's not a vision of with the associations that we have of deprivation and asceticism. But the challenge of bechirah, the challenge of Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanting that we should choose it, that we should work for it, that we shouldn't have the embarrassment of it just being given to us, means that there is such a stage. There is such a stage. And the nisayon is not to give up at that stage. The nisayon is to push through that stage. Means that there is such a stage, there is such a stage, and the nisayon is not to give up at that stage. Nisayon is to push through that stage. The Sforno's comments on V'atem Tihyu, on Goy Kadosh, are complemented by what the Rambam writes. We keep coming back to this. To on the Blau edition it's Resh-Kaf-Dalet. באורו יתברך האמת במופת והוא. And he has a fascinating introduction to what he is about to say:

שהכוונה בנו שנהיה גוי קדוש ולא יהיה לנו מעשה ודבור אלא בשלמות או במה שמביא אל השלמות.

So the Rambam is clearly not translating Kadosh as Nitzchi, translating Kadosh as consecrated. Completely consecrated, completely given over to a particular goal.

שהכוונה בנו שנהיה גוי קדוש ולא יהיה לנו מעשה ודבור אלא בשלמות או במה שמביא אל השלמות.

And again, just as the Sforno's teitch of kedusha identifies what the goal is and implies how everything else needs to be calibrated and contextualized, but it doesn't paint some kind of monolithic picture, the same is true for the Rambam as well. Right? This is the same Rambam who very famously in פרק ג' הלכות תלמוד תורה is against what rovam k'kulam of the gedolei hadoros allow of getting paid for being in rabbanut, for teaching Torah. Because for the Rambam, as once again

שהכוונה בנו שנהיה גוי קדוש ולא יהיה לנו מעשה ודבור אלא בשלמות או במה שמביא אל השלמות.

Once again, is not attending to the mundane realities and responsibilities, but the point is that one never loses sight of what his calling is, of what his mission is. And clearly the way the Sforno's understanding of kedusha is attained is the same as the Rambam's understanding of kedusha. As sort of conceptually or intellectually obvious and elementary as these ideas are, as self-evident upon reflection as this orientation to life is, we should never ever underestimate the challenge of. of the nisayon again of living in a world which marches to a very, very different beat. Lema'aseh, lema'aseh, we're bombarded daily with the antithetical approach to life, which means that we have to constantly be mitchazek to reinforce and to bolster the correct approach to life. As self-evident as it is intellectually, conceptually, there's no yesod of, there's no halacha of, there's no vort of, there's no element of chidush, there's no iota of chidush. It's devarim peshutim. But it's devarim peshutim that בכל עת ובכל שעה given our susceptibility to societal influence, which is very much part of human nature, so בכל עת ובכל שעה we're, that perception is constantly being clouded and constantly being obscured. And unless we respond to counter that, to constantly reinforce that orientation, so as obvious as it is, we get distracted from it. The the, again, the goal, the mandate of Kiddush HaChodesh, or of the hitchadshus, the hitchadshus, is a davar which is given to all of us, collectively, individually. Everyone ba'asher hu sham with his kochot hanefesh, his constellation of kochot hanefesh. Everyone should be focused on the two sides of the coin of

שיהיה לנו מעשה ודיבור על השלמות או על מניעת השלמות

and the other side of the coin of chayei olam. Emphasis, every time the, one doesn't have to get an aliyah, one could just listen to the Birchas HaTorah. The Seforno's message is reiterated: וחיי עולם נטע בתוכנו. That's what, that's what's the, and although the message is that, that he doesn't mean to exclude pshuto shel mikra, וחיי עולם נטע בתוכנו. That's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did. That's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu accomplished, that's the possibility that He afforded us and and and the challenge that He provided us through Matan Torah. וחיי עולם נטע בתוכנו. So it's the most extraordinary bracha, it's the most... And it requires, again, constant, constant reinforcement of the focus, not, not to lose sight of that bracha, not to lose sight of that opportunity.