Thoughts

Sometimes believing in people is challenging, sometimes more challenging than believing in G-d. It is a mitzvah to believe in G-d. I once heard a rabbi say that it is a mitzah to believe in oneself. I imagine it falls under "VeNishmartem me'od lenafshoteichem," (Devarim 4:15).

"Do not trust in princes who cannot save." (Psalms 146:3)" This seems to say that it is best not to trust in other people. Or maybe just princes/politicians, as per Avot 2:3: "Be careful with authorities, for they do not befriend a person except for their own sake. They appear as friends when they benefit from it, but they do not stand by a person in his time of need." I think Pirkei Avot applies to life and people in general.

And yet. There are people who deserve trust. Kindness. Realness. Integrity. Diligence. Perspective Empathy. Depth. Wisdom. Patience. Presence. Faith. These are some of the the traits that earn a person trust.

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I heard Rabbi Benzion Twerski tell the following story: His son was in the hospital recuperating from a car accident. His hospital room was filled with boys that were his friends. It was spirited and warm. One fellow started to play the violin and the other boys began to sing spiritual, slow songs together. The boy's mother decided to give them space and went into the hall. She sat right outside the room saying Tehillim. Her phone rang. A voice she bnever heard before said she was the mother of the boy playing the violin. She was calling from Switzerland. Her son called her and said that his friends mom was sitting alone and might enjoy someone to talk to.

Rabbi Twerski said that this story restored his faith in humanity.

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A BRIEF TALK FROM RABBI JJ SCHACHTER - My Notes

When Moshe is chosen he tries to decline the job and he says, send whoever you want (but not me). But G-d insists it will be him. Moshe seems to be a bit brazen in how he speaks to G-d. Also, he seems less than anxious to save the people that in the past he has shown that he cares for. Also, what is the meaning of the unusual phrasing about sending someone else.

Tradition has it that he was saying to send Elyahu HaNavi, the harbinger of redemption. He knew that with himself redemption would be a long and interrupted process. Out of his love for the Jewish People he wanted Elyahu to do it so that it would be done and ane for good. G-d said no, because redemption must be a process, must be done the way it was done by Moshe.

In life things take time. The Stamford marshmallow experiment with four year olds went as follows. They were told you can have one marshmallow now. Or wait 15 minutes and you get 2 marshmallows. Years later the kids were revisited, and all the ones who wated were better and more successful across the boards.

The ketchup commercial and song about anticipation is relevant. We have to wait in life. He was on a plane recently where after take off a kid asked her mom the back seat car question of old, "Are we there yet?" We need to wait in life, for so many things, in so many ways.

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When I was 17 I learned all of Sha'arei Teshuvah by Rabeinu Yonah of Geronah. It was meaningful to me. I was hurt when I was in a Jewish Studies course the next year in college and a student put down that book and all other mussar books saying there was no reason why they couldn't be read in the bathroom. I am pleased to say that the person who said that, all these years later, has matured and come to his senses. That book meant and means a li=ot to me. I was pleased when recently reading Erica Brown's book, Return. to see that she extensively quotes from Rabeinu Yohan and takes him very seriously.

One thing i remember from the book - I think it's from an essay at the end on the essence of teshuvah: Stick to what you believe is right, stick to doing the right things, to keeping mitzvot and even minhagim. If I recall correctly he gave the example of keeping Shaloshudes and says that if you're somewhere it's not being kept but you're makpid about it, you should speak up for yourself and get lechem mishnah. It sounds to me like a quite contemporary example.  I guess the more things change the more they stay the same.

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A friend of mine, last year, made a list of his top ten divrei Torah. I don't know if I could limit it to ten. I often find myself saying that, "This is one of my favorite ideas. Here are some.  Two short and one lonf.  Enjoy:

* The Talmud says that this world is compared to darkness. The Mishnah says that this world is like a banquet hall. Which is true? Both. This world is gorgeous, every spec of it. But the beauty has to be revealed. Through leading spiritual lives, through Torah, we continuously uncover the grandeur of this world. (Heard from RabbiZevulun  Charlop who quoted a not so well know source).

* In Sholomo HaMelech's instruction: "Chanoch lena'ar al pi darcho" - "Teach a youth according to his way," the word chanoch – teach - is written incompletely, without a vav. Rabbi Paysach Krohn notes that everyone likes this idea of teaching other people in their appropriate way when it applies to those we see as whole, the advanced students. However, when we look and don't find the vav, when someone has needs that challenge us, we are tempted to look away. This omission of a letter poses the metaphorical question: What do we do when the vav isn't there? The correct answer is that specifically in the case of a challenging student we must be vigilant do our best to meet his or her needs.

My thought on this is that according to the above cited approach, the word for youth - na’ar - should be written in an incomplete way. The fact that the verb chanoch - teach - is written incompletely tells us that difficulties that arise in teaching others come about not because of the incompleteness of the student but due to the imperfections of the teacher. No-one is perfect. And yet, parents, teachers, relatives, and friends must all try to teach as best we can, despite our own incompleteness. May we be so blessed.

* Rabbi Yitzchak Twersky (who used to work with me), based on the Abarbanel, says that the nachash/snake didn't talk, but that it was Chava's voice inside her head. Although she should have known better, Chava worked under the assumption that people and animals are the same. She chose (in the fashion that as a child I dubbed "accidentally on purpose") to think that G-d said not to eat from the tree because the tree was poisonous. She would only accept it in that way and could not accept that G-d said no because people and G-d have a relationship that includes commandments and rewards and punishments based on free will and choices. When she saw the snake rubbing up against the tree she decided that the tree must not be dangerous. Thinking that you couldn't even touch the tree, lest you die, was a logical follow up to the thought that the tree was forbidden because it was lethal. In Chava’s mind, as she saw the snake touching the tree she said to herself, "isn't it true that G-d said that you can't eat from all of the trees of the garden?"

If you read that question over again, you'll realize that one could argue that the answer to the question is yes. Because once you can't eat from one tree then it is true to say that you can not eat from all of the trees, as you can only eat in fact from some (albeit most) of the trees. That's one possibility of how she got from the one tree to all the trees in the garden, that it was based on her discomfort in having G-d control what trees she could eat from, even if it was only byHis  saying that just one tree was off limits.

The idea that the snake was actually Chava's voice is  applicable today. We weaken in resolve and in responsibility by talking about the yetzer hara as if it were a him, outside of ourselves. The snake/yetzer hara is a metaphor for a voice inside of us that we control. What this means is that the fruit had no power in and of itself but that the disobedient act of eating from the tree, and relying on their own judgment over G-d's, changed Adam and Chava’s thinking.

This can be understood through the analogy of parents and their son or daughter. If there’s a party and the parents feel it’s best to not go to that party, the child may assume that he or she knows the parents’ reason and that it won’t be a problem to disobey the parents because that reason doesn’t seem to apply. If the kid attends the party, he or she will never be the same. It may be that nothing of import happened at the party, but what changes the child forever is the act of trusting his or her own instinct over the authority of parents.

The question that comes to mind after taking in this approach is - why was the snake punished if he didn’t speak to Chava? The answer is that the "punishment" of the snake was a necessary consequence to show Chavah, and to remind people forever, that animals and people are different. Animals were created to serve people so they are "punished" as needed for people. This fits with what Rashi says about all the animals being "corrupt" and destroyed in the flood; they were only created to serve people and once people were corrupt, there was no use for animals. One strong indication that the snake never spoke is that when the snake is “punished,” we see no mention of his losing his power of speech. Another hole in the common conception that the snake spoke is that man is described upon his creation as a unique nefesh chayah, which Unkelus famously defines as ruach memalelah – a speaking soul, clearly implying that man was the only creation endowed with the power of speech.

May we be blessed to remember that as human beings we are unique. May we be blessed to be strong and to honor our relationship with G-d through obedience. May we be blessed to learn from Adam and Chavah’s error and to pursue and hold onto our closeness to G-d, which is the greatest choice we could make. May we be blessed to be spared from the mistake of thinking that we can override G-d's judgment with our own.