Harchek MiShachen Ra: The Danger of Bad Middos and the Influence of Our Neighbors

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Nitan Harabeli omer. Nitan Harabeli says, Harchek mishachen ra. Furthering yourself from a bad neighbor. Shachen ra. V'al tischaber lrasha. And do not associate, affiliate yourself with a rasha. The Chida explains that when it says, Harchek mishachen ra, furthering yourself from a bad neighbor, we're talking about the neighbor who's near the neighbor who is bad. Because the shachen ra, says the Chida, isn't the bad neighbor, but rather the shachen ra is the neighbor who's next to the bad neighbor, and that's a bad neighbor for you. Harchek mishachen ra. So you have to furthering yourself from that neighbor. Now before we get into understanding the Mishnah, we're going to discuss: is this a halacha Mishnah, or is this eitzah? Is this good counsel of what hanhaga should be in a neighborhood? Now we all know neighborhoods are complicated. Neighborhoods are difficult. So what is this Mishnah telling us? Is this Mishnah teaching us halacha? Is this Mishnah teaching us mussar eitzah? So we're going to get into that in a few moments. But before we do, I want to shtel zach, I want to be me'orer, I want to point out the diyukim in the Mishnah that need to be addressed. And the first question is, shachen ra, and then it says, v'al tischaber l'rasha. Is it the same? Are we talking about the same person? Is a shachen ra a rasha? Is the rasha the shachen ra? Maybe it's the same type of person. Maybe we're talking about the same person. They're both the same individual, whatever the chata'im are, as we soon will get into in a few moments, what are his sins? Why is he ra? But whatever it is, here it's talking about the shachen, and here it's talking about the affiliation, maybe in business or in shul, connection. And the Mishnah is talking about the same person. That's l'choira the shaylah how to understand the Mishnah. Is the shachen ra the same person as the rasha? The Rishonim and Acharonim both say, we'll soon see clearly from the Meiri, as Reb Chaim Volozhiner, that it has to be different because it's different lashon. Shachen ra, it should say shachen rasha. Obviously the shachen is not a rasha, because if he was, It would say, rasha. You don't have to have different leshonos, shachen ra, and then change it to s'chaber l'rasha. It should have been either harchek mishachen ra, v'al tischaber l'ra, or the other way around, harchek mishachen rasha, v'al tischaber l'rasha. Why do we have different leshonos? So we're going to see from the Rishonim and Acharonim that we're actually talking about two different types of people, two different rishus and ra, which will make a very big difference in understanding the pshat in the Mishnah. The other she'eilah that needs to be addressed: why by the shachen does it use a lashon of harchek, while by the rasha it just says, al tischaber? Harchek means to go far away from something. That's a lot more than tischaber. I mean, if you're not allowed to be connected, so then just say, al tischaber to the rasha, and as well as, al tischaber l'shachen ra. You see that there's a difference between the shachen ra, that by the shachen ra it says harchek.

Well, by the chrasha, it says, Al tischaber, which means don't affiliate. But you have to stay far away from him. It doesn't say that. These are the two she'eilos that the mefarshim ask on the Mishnah. And again, we have to discuss what is this Mishnah teaching us? Is it a halacha? Is it an eitzah tovah? And let's see how it's nogea l'maaseh. Let's see how we apply it l'maaseh. So again, just to be clear, let's understand the context of the Mishnah in light of the ha'aros, the diyukim that the mefarshim make. By the shochein, it says, Harchek, and by the rasha it says, Al tischaber. And also, why rasha and ra? Is there a difference between the two? Is the shochein not a rasha? He's just ra, not a rasha? Is there such a thing as ra not being rasha? From the Mishnah, it seems to be that there's a difference, right? Obviously, we are making the difference between the shochein ra and the rasha. So let me begin with Rabbeinu Yonah. Rabbeinu Yonah says that what is this Mishnah addressing? Zogt Rabbeinu Yonah, this Mishnah is referring to l'socher batim u'likeinah batim. A person walks into the real estate agency and he asks for a house. He wants to move into a neighborhood. Says Rabbeinu Yonah, that's what this Mishnah is addressing. You should take into account the two things that it says here in the Mishnah. Harchek mishachen ra, v'al tischaber l'rasha. You know, when you look for a house and you go to the house realty, they'll tell you all the mailos all the way to the pool. That's how they're going to tell you: the front yard, the backyard, the pool. Maybe I'm wrong. I think that's what they do. I might be wrong, but I imagine that that's what it's about. Well, the truth is the Mishnah says not to ask about the pool. The Mishnah tells us to go ask a whole different slew of questions, and that is, Harchek mishachen ra, v'al tischaber l'rasha. Azei lemed rabbeinu Yonah, it's about socher batim and koneh batim. So is this an eitzah or is this a halacha? I want to point out that the Rambam brings it in two places. The Rambam in Hilchos Ishus says clearly that a husband and a wife have a ta'ina that they don't want to live in a neighborhood sha'anosheha ra'im, that the people are bad, or they're prutzim, oygayim. It's a halacha that this becomes a ta'ina lahalacha that you can come and say, I can't live in such a neighborhood, and therefore you've got to either get me a house in a different neighborhood. Rambam brings this clearly lahalacha, this Mishnah, in light, in reference to a ta'ina of an ish and an isha. We made up we're going to move to this neighborhood. I'm sorry, we found out that this neighborhood is against the mefurasha Mishnah. It lacks the conditions of the Mishnah that says where you're supposed to move to. Like Rabbeinu Yonah says, I want to rent or borrow or buy a house in the neighborhood. You got to find out these conditions: harchek mishachen ra, v'al tischaber l'rasha. So the Rambam, sign the man and sign the wife, can come and say, I'm sorry, we're not moving into this neighborhood. You must buy me or rent me a house in a different neighborhood, because anoshei hara'im, oi prutzim, oi akum, or they're goyim. You don't want to live among goyim. You want to live among Yidden. Now, among Yidden, everybody understands. Among prutzim, all right, we all know about the tznius, the levels of tznius, more or less. But what is anoshei hara'im? It's a very open-ended statement. The people are bad. What do you call bad? The Rambam doesn't tell me what's called bad, right? We'll talk, we'll talk about it. Say, pashut halacha, harchek mishachen ra, bad. You know, it all depends on who you talk to. Some people, everybody's wonderful. By some people, nobody's good. So in what criteria could you have a...

You come to Bezin and say the people are, they're bad. Could you define bad? What do you call bad? What is the translation of bad? There's an interesting Rambam in Hilchos De'os, perek vav, halacha aleph, which we'll get to later in more depth, but just for the point of understanding what means ra, the Rambam says that if a person lives in a neighborhood, in a shchunah, among people who are minhageihem ra'im, their customs are bad, yeilech eitzel hamidbaros. He should quickly move out of the neighborhood, get away, and go into the midbar, go to the desert, and find yourself a house far away from everybody where there's nobody around, because you can't live, like the Mishnah tells us, in a place, harchek mishachen ra. Again, Rambam, what does it mean, minhageihem ra'im? Their minhagim, their actions. Well, I won't even say the word action. Minhag means their customs. It's an interesting word. Minhageihem, says the Rambam, is ra'im, is bad. What constitutes minhageihem ra'im, bad hanhagos? I would like to address this shaila today, side the halacha end of it, and side the mussar and the mussar haskel that should be taken from it. So here we're learning a Mishnah, that the Mishnah tells us that there's a criteria of halacha, l'choira, the Rambam brings it. Of what and where a person should live. He cannot live around shachen ra. What does ra mean? We don't know. The Rambam in both places does not tell us what ra means. He just says that there are anashim ra'im, prutzim. Okay, I hear. I can understand the word prutzim. I can understand akum. But what does it mean, ra'im? Define me the word ra'im. So, I want to tell you over an interesting teshuvas Hagaonim, which comes up in all the shailos teshuvos about this topic, and it's already brought down in Be'er Heitev, in Choshen Mishpat, siman kuf nun vav, Shailos Teshuvas Hagaonim, she'eilah kuf yud tes, that people in a neighborhood could withhold and force the addiction—I think that's the right word when someone is a viction, excuse me—the eviction of a neighbor who is not good. They could come and ta'ina, We do not want him in our neighborhood. He's got to go. You know, there would be no neighborhoods if that would be the case, right? So what criteria, with what ta'ina could you come and say, I don't want him in my neighborhood? Says Shailos Teshuvas Hagaonim that this is yecholim la'akev, lo rak akum, not only a goy, shestam akum hu anos. They're dangerous. At some given point, they could turn into a danger. Now, I don't want to get into this topic right now, goyim danger. This is not for the internet as well. I'm not discussing this right now. Either way, the teshuvas haגאונים continues, al afilu Yisrael, even a Yid, shachen ra. Okay, here you have your shachen ra, your Mishnah. She'eino noyach lahem. They don't feel comfortable with this guy around. Oh boy. Like I said, this is a very open, wide definition of a shachen ra, to the point that I think there would be no neighborhoods in Klal Yisrael. Everybody would come and say, Well, I don't like this, and I don't feel comfortable with this, and I can't stand this guy, and this, and I can't stand with this guy. I feel bad for the beis din that has to follow up on all this paperwork. It's an unbelievable open-ended criteria. Anything that's not noyach lahem, that they don't feel comfortable, they're not... they could get rid of. Shachen ra, bad neighbor. What's a bad... I don't know. I don't know. That needs to be defined, rabosai. Halacha can't be that every neighbor could come to beis din and complain about his neighbor's bicycle in the driveway. Shreklach. And by the way...

You know, I've heard this in the past, neighbors that come and they put the bicycle, so he put the bicycle. So what? Now what? Okay, so you see parks like that. You know, in the camps, we didn't have that much space. All right, we should be very happy with the amount of space we have. It shouldn't be my grass, your grass. And I don't believe that the teshuvas hagaonim is giving you permission to be a zdaynit, okay, to live in a makom Torah and be a zdaynit. I don't think that's what exactly is what the teshuvas hagaonim is referring to. So then what does he mean, 'ha-shachen she'eino noyach'? You're not comfortable with him. What does it mean? So over the years, I have searched teshuvos about this inyan because, of course, I experienced over the years, side being a shachen and side being a rav, these complaints and issues. What's called a shachen ra, eino noyach lahem. So I found in the Marit, chelek beis, siman mem-tes. The Marit says, he brings a Mishnah. The Mishnah brings a case where a person makes a neder that he's not going to marry this woman because of aviha ra. She has a mean father. Oh boy. This guy should maybe never get married, period. I don't know. Aviha ra, she has a bad father. But he specifically points out this girl who her father is bad. It's a Mishnah. Says the Mishnah, when does he become permitted to live with this woman, to be married to her? Either when the father dies or the father does teshuva. Says the Marit, we see the word aviha ra; she's a bad person. What constitutes a bad person? Let's see our Mishnah, right? Harchek mishachen ra. Bad. Oh, we're starting to get a definition in the Mishnah, in the Chazal, what's called bad, right? We have a mekor of what means bad, a bad person. Says the Marit, it's sura ra. He has a bad disposition. He's a very shverer mensch, a shverer mensch. Ooh, wow. So we have a very, a very interesting definition now, that every time a person has bad disposition, he's a grumpy, difficult, he's an angry guy, I don't know, whatever word, whatever adjective you want to use, or call it a verb, whatever you want to call it, whatever it is, if he is that, he's that guy that people want to stay away from, so then you can get him out of your neighborhood, right? But if you read further in the teshuva of the Marit, you see clearly the Marit explains that he's ra, and therefore your complaint against him is that you're scared of him, that he could cause you hezek, he could hurt you in some way, shape, or form. Okay? So that limits the open-ended, I don't like the guy because he's what? He's grumpy, he's angry. Is he going to hurt you? I don't know. Is he going to cause you—are you afraid that tonight he'll take a bat and beat you up? I mean, I don't know if— If it's not that, then he still doesn't fall into the definition of ra that the Maharit explains is the case of vira, and further implied here in the Mishnah of shachen ra. So I think any person that you don't fear him is still not called ra. So it's not that bad. I mean, you can tell him you're afraid of your neighbor. He left the bicycle in your backyard. You still don't be afraid of him. Ain't gonna beat you up, right? So he still hasn't become ra. But I did find in the Karnei Re'em, the Shaalos U'teshuvos of the Karnei Re'em, in siman kuf lamed ches, which is a very important point. He says what's called a shachen ra is a gavra palga'a, a baal machlokes. Someone who always causes machlokes, that's a person who you could come to a beis din and claim, this is a shachen ra. We don't want him in our neighborhood. Korach, hitbadlu mitoch ha'eidah hazos. The Torah tells us clearly, you shouldn't be around baalei machlokes. They're dangerous. Oy l'rasha, oy l'scheino, people could get caught up.

And as you soon see in the Rishonim, that's one of the reasons why harchakas mishachen ra you could get in danger, because since danger could befall the baal machlokes in this פירוש of Rabbeinu Kairach, but the Rishonim say in general, the shachen ra could cause you hezek, because since he could get punished, your house is next door to his house, so you could claim, I don't want to live next to the shachen ra. And if you learn it that it means a baal machlokes, makes sense. We find by Korach this yesod, that Korach caused all the people around him a lot of tzaros, as they say. And mimeila, this could be the taam. Now the problem with that is, of course, every person thinks the other guy is the baal machlokes, right? That's the big problem. Every baal machlokes thinks that the other guy is the baal machlokes. Good luck in trying to figure out who the real baal machlokes is and who's the instigator and who's the victim. Al kol panim, we do see a yesod, that where you live in a neighborhood where people are fighting because they're baalei machlokes, that's harchakas mishachen ra. Harchakas mishachen ra, that's called a bad neighbor and a bad neighborhood. Now, is this shachen ra a bein adam laMakom ra or a bein adam l'chaveiro ra? So we're going down the route of machlokes. Machlokes is a bein adam l'chaveiro issue, basically. I hear where you could see where it could turn into an issue of ra laShamayim, that he's bad to the Ribbono Shel Olam too. This is a big question. The Meiri learns that the shachi ra is ra l'shamayim, as well as ra labriyos, and he makes it into a kol shekein. He's a ra labriyos, u'kol shekein if he's ra l'shamayim. There's an interesting teshuva from the Arugas Habosem. The Arugas Habosem says, he discusses if you could stop a mechalel Shabbos from moving into your neighborhood. Somebody wants to, you know, rent a house or whatever it is to a mechalel Shabbos. Could the neighbors come and say, you know, listen, we don't want a mechalel Shabbos around here? So first the Arugas Habosem goes through the teshuva, legabei actually renting to a mechalel Shabbos where he's going to do chilul Shabbos, and you're a mesayea, which means you're helping, you're giving a hint to chilul Shabbos, because in your house he's going to do chilul Shabbos. So he goes through a long teshuva. It's not for right now, the context of that teshuva. He could go somewhere else and rent the house. He could be mechalel Shabbos anyway. It's considered shtei avarei d'nahara; it's two sides of the river. He could get it anyway. Long shmues. He ends the teshuva, it's interesting, and he says, but what he will bring out, that even if it's possible to say that it's not asur because the guy could anyway go and be mechalel Shabbos in a different house or rent a different house, and then of course the question is, other teshuva sefarim speak about it: is he using your house to be mechalel Shabbos? No. In your house he's being mechalel Shabbos. It's not like you're helping him to be mechalel Shabbos. You're right, maybe he's putting out electricity, so it's like you're helping him. Like I said, we could discuss this for a topic for itself, but the main part of the teshuva, it's the גיליוןיינו, is the end of the teshuva where the teshuva, the Arugas Habosem writes, Harchek mishachin ra. That since he's a shachen ra, you could come and say, listen, he doesn't belong in my neighborhood, so the renter shouldn't rent it, and the people in the neighborhood should put their foot down and say, we don't want a mechalel Shabbos among us. Learning this Mishnah, that the harchek mishachin ra means even l'shamayim that he's a mechalel Shabbos. I saw the Tzitz Eliezer explains that there's another nekudah in the shachen ra and chilul Shabbos, and that is that the neighbors could come and say, eino noach lanu. Remember the teshuvos hageonim, they could say, we don't feel comfortable. So they could come and say, listen, we don't feel comfortable when a guy is in his backyard barbecuing on Shabbos. We don't feel comfortable, our kids... So it fits into the hagdarah of the teshuvos hageonim of eino noach lanu. We don't feel comfortable with this person.

This is bein adam laMakom. But I want to point out that though Meiri learns that the shachin ra is bein adam l'chaveiro, kashek bein adam laMakom, and there is Rashi's, which is not in front of us, not in the Masechta of Avos, and not in any of the later day that they work on the Rishonim, but in the teshuvos they quote Rashi, that Rashi says, shachin ra is bein adam l'chaveiro, gazlan, al tischaber l'rasha, bein adam laMakom, arayos. I haven't seen these Rashis, but it's quoted in the Acharonim. In passing they bring such a Rashi. I haven't found this Rashi. What I do know is that Rav Chaim Volozhin writes clearly that harchek mishachin ra is bein adam l'chaveiro specifically and not bein adam laMakom. Al tischaber l'rasha is bein adam laMakom, and he's toleh b'riyos. Rav Chaim Volozhin. Again, remember I asked you, what is the difference? By the shachin it just says ra, and by the rasha, tischaber, it uses the lashon rasha. What's the difference? Now we have a very nice interpretation of Rav Chaim Volozhin, that it's bedavka. There's a reason, because by the shachin we're not talking about that he's ra laShamayim, unlike the teshuvos I quoted about chilul Shabbos and whatnot. No, fakert, he's a frum Yid, he's a gevaldige. The problem is he's a shachin ra, he's bein adam l'chaveiro. It's not clean. It's not right. That's why it's shochein ra. It's not a rasha, but ra. Al tischaber l'rasha. There it means, rasha laShamayim v'tov labriyos, and he's good for people. Okay? I have a question, rabosai. Why then, by the shochein, does it say harchek, and by the rasha, which is rasha laShamayim, does it say tischaber? Which means you don't have to furthering yourself from the rasha laShamayim. But when it comes to the shochein ra, who's the frum Yid, the fakerte, shreit and davening, but he's a bad middos, there it says harchek. And I've always learned pshat this way, but I was scared to say it b'rabim until I found the Mekor for it. I've always felt, and I feel this strongly, rabosai, it is worse to live around people who have bad middos than who are oveir aveirah. Al tischaber l'rasha. Don't connect yourself with him. And like Rabbeinu Yonah says, because somehow you're helping him, you're part of him, and therefore you're somewhat a mesayea in his aveirah. But you don't have to be harchek. You know why? It's identifiable that he's a rasha. You're a shomer Torah u'mitzvos; he's not. It's pretty obvious. You're not going to, so to speak, become so mushpa from him. So al tischaber. It's enough. Just don't connect yourself. You don't have to sit at a Shabbos table together with him, buddy-buddy with him. All right? When it comes to ra labriyos, when it comes to bad middos, he's a baal machlokes or he's just a schlechte mensch. The hashpaah is dangerous because it's silent. It's a silent killer. You hang around him, and this I've seen all my life, and I give this over to you as a fact of years and years of living. You don't even realize that it's poisoning you. Harchek mishachen ra. You need to stay very far away. The Meiri explains it's hashpaah in pchisas hamidos. The lashon of the Meiri is that if you have a shachen ra, it's dangerous. Why? Because it affects your middos, and I want to add, without even realizing it. And therefore it's harchek. Stay far away because you don't realize, and it's more dangerous than the rasha that's identifiable. And where did I see this pshat? Reb Isaac Sher zech tzaddik livracha from Slabodka says this daher, that by a shachen ra, middos is harchek. Rasha, you don't need that much. Al tischaber is enough. But you don't have to move, so to speak, away from where you live.

The Rambam's loshon, rabosai. And again, I've thought about this for years, and I held this way, and I finally felt the ability to say it, but I saw it by ... says this, but I believe that's also pshat in the Rambam now. Minhageihem ra'im. They're minhagim ra'im. What does that mean, minhagim ra'im? What do you mean? Are they going against Shulchan Aruch? It's not about Shulchan Aruch, rabosai. It's about behavior. It's about bad behavior. When you live around bad behavior, it silently poisons the entire person, and he becomes mushpa from it, and you don't even realize that it's happening. I'd like to tell you two stories. One story is from the Sar Shalom, the Belzer Rebbe, zecher tzaddik livrachah. I've read it, and it had a ... when I saw it, about a chassid of his that discussed living in a remote place. He said he needed parnassah, maybe he'll do some kiruv over there. Belzer Rebbe told him, Go. It's a good idea. Chassid, he listens to his Rebbe. Blindly he went. He writes back to the Rebbe that he wants to come back. After a year of living there, he wants to come back because, pashut, there's nobody to talk to. There's nobody there that's even close to his caliber in yiras Shamayim, the people are whatever they are, and therefore he's uncomfortable, and it's not a good sviva for him, and so on and so forth, and vechulu vechulu. Sar Shalom tells him, Stay. Six months later, he gets a letter from the Rebbe, from the chassid. The Rebbe gets a letter, and the chassid tells the Rebbe, Rebbe, I started to find people I could, you know, communicate with, and I'm able to... Baruch Hashem. Okay, now you come back. Now it's time to come back. That's the brilliance of the story. Kol zman you realize, then you're okay. The minute you start feeling comfortable with the people around you, means that they're having hashpaah on you too, you see. And now it's time to come back. And now it's harchek mishachen ra. It's a beautiful story, right? Sadly, I was told of another story that was in a newspaper article recently about a woman who writes that at a chasunah, someone held the door for her, a child. She turns to the child and she asks the child, Oh, where are you from? The child says, Before I tell you, I have to ask you, I'm new here in town. Yeah. The child held the door for a lady. Yet the child asks, Can I ask you? I'm here new in town. I saw a hashgachah here, and where I live, I don't recognize the hashgachah. So she understood right away that it's not from the town, and I'm going to leave the names blank. She's not from here. Where are you from? Yeshivah girl. I'm from the cheder in Brooklyn. The rest you'll figure out yourself. And she writes, this is the first time someone held the door for her. She clearly understands, what does it mean that a child has derech eretz? She was shocked by it. She writes this in the newspaper. You know, rabosai, where we live is not an excuse for our behavior. That's the point that I was trying to bring out, and the rest I don't want to clearly identify. I'm sure anybody reads the Hamodia and the Yated, wherever the story was, you can find the story. There's a point to this story, and that is that we don't even realize how it attacks our inner— that we're almost surprised, like, wait, wait a second, he's— normal basic hanhagos tovos are just not— and it all has to do with the environment we live in, and it's not an excuse. Shochein ra is hanhagoseihem ra'im. It means that the person doesn't behave with etiquette. There's a midas chisaron, and that's where the danger is more than anywhere else. No one's going to do big aveiros.

Aveiros, I mean, I'm not saying that people don't do aveiros, baruch Hashem, most don't, but the hashpa'ah, it's not as dangerous as when it comes to middos ra'os of ra, ra labriyos. I want to tell you over another nekudah from a Ramban. Rambam says that a person should go and live in the midbar if he sees that the minhagim are ra'im. And we're explaining minhagim ra'im means that they don't have the right middos tovos, for lack of a better term. There's a very famous story that everybody knows. It's about Reb Chaim Brisker. And I heard it originally that Reb Shraga Feivel Mendelovich would say it over, and it's printed over in his name, and I heard it one way. And then when I came to the yeshiva, I heard it a different way. I'll tell you over the two versions of the story, and I'll show you how, midafah shtein pshat lmaaseh, and then we can go back to our Mishnah. The story is that Rav Avrom Kamenovitch, the Ktina Rav, knocks on the door of Reb Chaim Brisker when he was in Minsk during the wars, World War One. A lot of pleitim ran to Minsk; it was more secure there. Rav Avrom knocks on the door of Reb Chaim Brisker, and there's no answer. He goes to the window; the shades are closed. Probably nobody's home. He knocks again. Nobody's home. And he starts to walk away. All of a sudden he notices that someone peeked out the window. Oh, so he runs back and he knocks on the door, and he hears a girl ask, Who is there? He says, Tiktinei Rav. Oh, okay, Tiktinei Rav. Rav Ram Kamenovich, he was let in. He asks Reb Chaim, I don't understand. It's famous, you, Reb Chaim, your door was always open. In Brisk, everybody knows Reb Chaim had an offen shtub. Why is the door sealed shut? The shutters are closed? Reb Chaim took out that Rambam I quoted to you above, where the Rambam says that if you live in a place that the minhagim are ra'uyim, you must go to the midbar. You must run away. I can't go physically to the midbar, so I'm in my house and I act like I'm in the midbar, discommunicated from the people around me. This place in Minsk is anosheiha ra'uyim, bad people. It's interesting, many mefarshim learn the Mishnah that way. Harchek mishachen ra — that's before I move in. I should be marchik myself. But what happens if I live there already? Do I have to move out? The Rambam seems to say I have to go to the midbar. But who says that's always doable? When am I to start buying a new house now? Every time I move into a neighborhood and it's not right, I should move away? So the Mishnah continues, If you're stuck, al tischaber larasha. One of the Chiddushim pshat in that, that one is before you buy and one is after you buy. Once you're stuck, you're stuck. But the Rambam, according to Reb Chaim, there was another eitzah: you could live in your house. And be not in your house. It's interesting. You know the Radbaz lived in Mitzrayim, and he was asked, You now live in Mitzrayim, which is a question that was already posed to the Rambam. For the sake of time, I won't go into the Rambam's answer, but I'll tell you the Radbaz's answer. Radbaz says, I don't live in Mitzrayim. I live in my house, and my house happens to be located in Mitzrayim. I have nothing to do with Mitzrayim. I have nothing to do with the outside street. Grada, my house happens to be landed in Mitzrayim. I can't help you about that. That's what happened. But I don't live in Mitzrayim. I live in my house. Famous Radbaz. So Reb Chaim is using this analogy also: I don't live in Minsk. I live in a midbar. I happen to be a Minsker, so I do it in my house. I close the shutters and I'm locked away. In the yeshivas, I was told this story, that it had to do with communism and askalah and reshaim, and later on the Briskerov said it had to do with Zionism. That's how I heard the story in the yeshivas, that it had to do with the spiritual bad that was on the street, askalah, and therefore Reb Chaim locked himself in his room, and so on and so forth.

But I knew growing up, hearing the story and hanging around the Torah vdaas by Rebbels, I didn't hear it that way. And when I read it a few times, b'sheim Reb Shlomo Feivel, it was a little different. Reb Shlomo Feivel and the Lubavitch said that the people had no rachmanus. They weren't good people, and that's why Reb Chaim Ozer had nothing to do with them. It's a whole different story, right? Like every story, you hear it one way from one part of, and then you hear it a different way and it bothered me. And then I finally went and I found the mekor of the story. It's in Klumas Halev from Rav Avrom Kamenovich. Klumas Halev is Rav Avrom Kamenovich's writings and stories. And there I got my answer. Reb Chaim said that they had no rachmanus because they took the pleitim that were there, and instead of putting them into the proper yeshivas, which costed money, they put them into the shuls, which means the public schools. So they have such a lack of rachmanus, they're achzorim, that they put the children into haskalah. I can't have anything to do with them. So I see, marah mehachi u'marah mehachi v'lo פליגי. Both sides of the story, the rachmanus part was true, and the haskalah part was true, which is the main part of the problem. I would like to learn that it's the rachmanus, and I'll explain to you here. S'dom. We all know that there was a ta'ina on living in S'dom. In perek tes-vav of Yechezkel it says clearly, what was chatas S'dom? It says clearly. Yad oni lo yachzikah. From all the ra, from all the bad that Sdom did, what was the biggest evil of Sdom? That they didn't do chesed. Yad oni, when people came to them, the rachmanus. This, you see, is a shachin ra. Sdom is called shachin ra. This is the pshat in the Mishnah. So what's the point I'm trying to bring out? You know, rabbeisai, you have to be on both ends. I'm mashpia and a mushpa in middos tovos. Where you live, if there's middos tovos, your children will grow up normal, healthy. If what they see is fighting and machlokes and against the Rabbanim and against talmidei chachamim, it's not going to work, rabbeisai. And it's going to sink in in a way that you won't even realize how it's destroying you and your family. Harchek mishachen ra, harchek mishachen ra. I see the time. I will end off with one maaseh, one vort from Belzer Rav, which is beautiful, and you'll have meiridike hanachah. The Sar Shalom said a beautiful vort. You know Yankev Avinu ran away from Lavan's house, right? And he told his wives that he's running away from Lavan's house. When did he decide to run away? He says clearly to them, Hinei anochi ro'eh pnei avichen, ve'einenu imi. It's not like kitmol shilshom, like two days ago and three days ago. So what's the pashut pshat? The pashut pshat is that when I look, I see that he's angry, right? Two, three days ago, he was more friendly, right? Now all of a sudden, I see it's getting worse and worse. It's deteriorating. His facial expression to me—Sagt der Sar Shalom, that's not the real pshat in the pasuk. Sagt der Sar Shalom, when we came together, we couldn't even look two words at each other. I was a baal middos tovos. I was a frum Yid. He was mamish no shaykhus. All of a sudden, I start to realize, eino iti k'smol shilshom, which means it's getting better. His facial—he's starting to smile at me. We're starting to get along more. Oh, now it's time to run away. Now it's time. Now the time has come. We got to get out of here, because if he's already being friendly to me—oy vey, oy vey. Mushpa and mashpia. Remember, in a neighborhood, you can either be mashpia, or you can be a mushpa. You have to be careful of harchek, mishachek. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.