Yemei HaRachamim VehaSelichos: Learning from the Aron in Ashdod

Topics

• The Aron in Ashdod
• When the Message Is Ignored
• What Is “Derech Achzarius”?
• From Derech Achzarius to Derech Rachamim
• What Are Yemei HaRachamim?
• Rachamim Means Connection
• Rachamim Is More Than Doing Good
• Seeing Elul According to Where You Are Holding
• The Hidden Avodah of Elul and the Yamim Noraim

Transcript

## The Aron in Ashdod

In I Shmuel, perek 5, the Pelishtim capture the Aron Hashem and bring it to Ashdod. They place it in the house of Dagon, their avodah zarah, beside Dagon itself (I Shmuel 5:1–2).

The next morning they find Dagon fallen face-down before the Aron. They simply put it back in place. The following morning Dagon has fallen again, this time with its head and hands broken on the threshold (5:3–5).

That should have been enough to awaken them. Something extraordinary was happening in front of their eyes. But instead of asking what Hashem was showing them, they created a new custom around the threshold and continued in the same way.

Then the punishment intensified. The pasuk describes the Hand of Hashem becoming heavy upon Ashdod (5:6). Chazal and the mefarshim discuss the additional plague of mice as well.

The pattern is the important point. Hashem does not begin with the harshest punishment. First comes a sign. Then another sign. Then pressure. The opportunity is there to understand, to change direction, and to return the Aron.

But the Pelishtim keep missing the message. And because they refuse to respond to the earlier warning, the next stage becomes more severe.

## When the Message Is Ignored

The Navi describes every stage in detail. Dagon falls. They do not learn. A plague begins. They still do not learn. They move the Aron to another place instead of returning it. The suffering becomes worse.

Why does the Navi need to tell us every step?

Rabbi Walkin quotes a teaching attributed to the Kli Yakar: the entire progression is teaching us the **rachmanus of the Ribbono Shel Olam**. Even people who seized the Aron Hashem and placed it in a house of avodah zarah were not immediately struck with the full punishment. First they were given a sign. Then another opportunity. Hashem was, so to speak, trying to awaken them before bringing something harsher.

This is exactly the yesod of the Rambam in *Hilchos Taaniyos* 1:3. When a tzarah comes and people say, “It just happened; this is simply the way of the world,” the Rambam calls that **derech achzarius**. And he says that such an attitude causes further tzaros.

Why? Because if the first event was meant to awaken us and we refuse to listen, the purpose has not yet been accomplished.

The Pelishtim are the picture of this Rambam. Every stage could have ended the story. Each time, instead of hearing the message, they explained it away and continued. And therefore the pressure increased.

## What Is “Derech Achzarius”?

What does the Rambam mean when he calls this attitude *derech achzarius*?

One explanation is that a person is being cruel **to himself**. A message came that was meant to bring change. If he refuses to take the lesson, he does not escape the difficulty; he merely postpones the response and may cause the situation to become harder.

Rabbi Walkin relates an oral story in the name of the Chazon Ish. Someone thought that by changing places he could leave his troubles behind. The Chazon Ish answered that yisurim are like an arrow addressed to the person, not to his street address. Moving does not remove the lesson Hashem intends for him.

He then brings a mashal from Rav Yerucham. A man complains in a restaurant that the meat is already old. The waiter tells him: “Eat it tonight. If you do not, tomorrow it will appear inside the blintzes. If you avoid it then, in a few days it will be inside the kreplach. Eventually you will eat the same meat.”

The nimshal is sharp. If Hashem is trying to teach a person something, refusing the first opportunity does not make the message disappear.

But Rabbi Walkin suggests an additional reading. *Derech achzarius* can also mean that when a person refuses to see purpose in what happens, he begins to experience the entire world as cruel and arbitrary. Instead of seeing difficulty as something coming from Hashem for a reason and ultimately for one's good, everything begins to look harsh, meaningless, and hostile.

That itself is a terrible way to live.

## From Derech Achzarius to Derech Rachamim

The opposite of *derech achzarius* is to understand that what Hashem does has a cheshbon and a purpose.

When difficulty comes, the avodah is not to say that life is cruel. The avodah is to recognize that even what is painful can come through **derech rachamim**.

Yonah was taught this at the end of Sefer Yonah. Hashem caused the kikayon to grow and then caused it to disappear. Yonah was deeply distressed. Hashem used that experience to teach him about compassion for Ninveh (Yonah 4:6–11).

The message is that the Ribbono Shel Olam's relationship to His creations is not arbitrary. There is care, purpose, and rachamim.

That returns us to the Aron in Ashdod. Even the Pelishtim, who had taken the Aron Hashem and placed it beside avodah zarah, were first given signs and opportunities to understand before the punishment became severe.

And from here Rabbi Walkin moves into Elul.

We call these days **Yemei HaRachamim VehaSelichos**. What does that actually mean?

Does it simply mean that during Elul Hashem has mercy on us? Does it mean He accepts our teshuvah even when we are undeserving? Or does the phrase *Yemei HaRachamim* describe something deeper than an act of mercy?

To understand Elul, we first have to understand what *rachamim* itself means.

## What Are Yemei HaRachamim?

One possibility is that Elul is called *Yemei HaRachamim* because Hashem receives our teshuvah with love. **“Ani l'dodi v'dodi li”**—“I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine” (Shir HaShirim 6:3)—is famously associated with Elul.

Another possibility is that the gift of these days is itself an act of rachamim: Hashem gives us a special opportunity to cleanse ourselves before the Yemei Hadin.

But Rabbi Walkin argues that the phrase means something deeper.

He points to the teachings of the Arizal concerning Elul and the **Yud-Gimmel Middos HaRachamim**. These days are associated with an opening and revelation of the thirteen attributes of rachamim. He connects this as well with the imagery of *shoshanim* in “Ani l'dodi v'dodi li, haroeh bashoshanim.”

The exact kabbalistic source requires review, but the conceptual point is clear: Elul is not merely a period when Hashem performs merciful acts.

**Rachamim is a state of relationship.**

If the Yud-Gimmel Middos HaRachamim are opened during these days, then *Yemei HaRachamim* means that a particular kind of closeness between Hashem and Klal Yisrael becomes accessible.

Rachamim is not only an action. It is a regesh.

## Rachamim Means Connection

Rabbi Walkin develops this through the Sfas Emes.

We say every day, **“Tov Hashem lakol, v'rachamav al kol maasav”**—“Hashem is good to all, and His compassion is upon all His works” (Tehillim 145:9).

Why both expressions—*tov* and *rachamav*?

The Sfas Emes explains, as Rabbi Walkin presents it, that **tov** describes what Hashem does. Hashem acts with goodness and chesed.

**Rachamim**, however, describes connection: *deveikus* and *hiskashrus*. When you have rachmanus on someone, you do not merely perform a favor. You enter into his pain. His tzarah touches you.

That is a different relationship entirely.

This is why the Navi says regarding Ephraim, **“Ki midei dabri bo, zachor ezkerenu od; al kein hamu me'ai lo, rachem arachamenu”**—“Whenever I speak of him, I remember him still; therefore My innards yearn for him; I will surely have compassion upon him” (Yirmiyahu 31:19).

The rachamim flows from the relationship.

So when we speak about *Yemei HaRachamim*, we are not only saying that Hashem will act leniently or grant something we do not deserve. We are speaking about days in which the kesher itself is revealed.

The Ribbono Shel Olam, so to speak, feels Klal Yisrael's pain and draws them close.

That is rachamim.

## Rachamim Is More Than Doing Good

Chazal say that one who says in tefillah, **“Your mercy reaches the bird's nest,”** is silenced (Mishnah Berachos 5:3; Berachos 33b).

Why should that be a problem? Sending away the mother bird certainly appears compassionate.

Rabbi Walkin uses the Sfas Emes to make a deeper distinction. You can perform a good act toward something without having an emotional bond with it. That is *tov* or *chesed*.

But **rachamim** means more. It means attachment. It means the other one's pain reaches you.

He gives a simple mashal. A person says, “I love chicken,” while eating it. Obviously he does not mean that he loves the chicken itself; he means he enjoys what the chicken gives him. Love and rachamim imply a relationship to the other.

That is what makes *Yemei HaRachamim* so extraordinary.

These are not merely days when Hashem agrees to do merciful things for us. They are days that express **love, compassion, and closeness** between the Ribbono Shel Olam and Klal Yisrael.

A parent can feel compassion for a child even when the child is not presently asking for anything. The regesh exists because of the bond.

So too, *Yemei HaRachamim* describes the relationship itself.

## Seeing Elul According to Where You Are Holding

People speak about the tremendous pachad of Elul—even the famous expression that “the fish tremble” when Elul arrives.

Rabbi Walkin asks: do the fish literally know that it is Elul?

The deeper point is that a person sees the world around him according to **where he himself is holding**. A Yid who is filled with Elul feels Elul everywhere. His entire environment seems to carry the same trembling that he feels within himself.

He gives a family story with humor. One Shabbos, when his grandmother was away, store-bought fish was served. His grandfather praised it enthusiastically because, unlike the usual homemade fish, he did not have to keep thanking anyone after every bite. The point of the story was not the fish—it was how one's own inner situation shapes what one notices.

The same principle applies everywhere.

Rabbi Walkin relates that when a vort about seeing the world through one's own perspective was told to a travel agent, the travel agent responded that he would “get a lot of mileage” out of it.

Exactly. A travel agent hears mileage.

A person sees what occupies him.

So when Elul truly occupies a Yid, he sees Elul in the world around him. The atmosphere is not created by external signs alone. It is created by the inner state of the person experiencing them.

## The Hidden Avodah of Elul and the Yamim Noraim

Rabbi Walkin then asks a striking question.

Where is **Elul** in Shas? Where is the entire emotional world that Klal Yisrael associates with the **Yamim Noraim** written explicitly in the Torah?

Rosh Hashanah is certainly in the Torah. We have the korbanos and the mitzvah of shofar. But where is the full avodah of awe, malchus, longing, and inner transformation that generations of Yidden experience?

His answer is that some things are **m'meila**. They are the natural response of a Jewish neshamah to a reality.

If Hashem is Melech, then we must become the *am*. **Ein melech b'lo am**—a king implies a people who respond to His kingship.

And the same is true of Elul.

We say, **“Lecha amar libi: bakshu panai; es panecha Hashem avakesh”**—“My heart says on Your behalf, ‘Seek My face’; Your face, Hashem, I seek” (Tehillim 27:8).

Rabbi Walkin emphasizes that the call **“Bakshu panai”** is heard inside the Jewish heart. The Ribbono Shel Olam is calling through the neshamah itself: Seek My face.

That is *Yemei HaRachamim*.

Not merely days in which Hashem performs an act of mercy because we are in trouble. They are days of **regesh, longing, closeness, and relationship**.

You cannot fully define that feeling from the outside. A Yid has to allow it to emerge.

When Elul comes, when Rosh Hashanah comes, when Hashem's malchus becomes real to a person, the neshamah responds.

Those are Yemei HaRachamim VehaSelichos.