Chayei Sarah: Chesed Shel Emes—Avraham’s Burial of Sarah and the Influence of True Kindness

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. In the beginning of the parsha, we read about Sarah's levaya. Avraham Avinu purchases a makom kevurah, a place of burial, the Mearas HaMachpeilah, to bury Sarah. It's interesting, the levaya she had. Today, the big levayos, we talk about a million people. A million people showed up to the levaya, Meron. Equivalent to that levaya, we see in Sarah had a tremendous big levaya. Everyone came. Everyone. The pasuk says, pasuk says, V'efron yoshev b'soch bnei Cheis, vayaan Efron haChiti es Avraham b'oznei bnei Cheis, l'chol ba'ei sha'ar iro. All the people, all the people of the city showed up, says Rashi. How did everyone come? Why did everyone come? And the answer is, shekulan bitlu m'melachtan. They all stopped working. U'va'u ligmol chesed l'Sarah. Why? It's interesting, I always thought about it. Why is it everyone paid chesed — lashon Rashi, chesed to Sarah? First of all, how do we know it was for Sarah? Maybe they came for Avraham. Avraham was nasi Elokim atah b'socheinu. Avraham was a tremendous personality, a tremendous chashuv person in the world. Avraham Avinu fought kings. Avraham Avinu even had his own currency. Avraham had his own currency. That's how rich and famous Avraham was. The pasuk says clearly, ches calls him nasi Elokim atah b'socheinu. So how do we know that everyone showed up for the levayah of Sarah because chesed, ligmol chesed l'Sarah? Maybe it was to show honor to Avraham. I believe I heard this question from Reb Shmuel Birnbaum, zecher tzaddik livrachah, the Mir Rosh Yeshiva. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that that's the first time that I heard this question was from him. How do we know, how do Chazal know that it was about Sarah? Maybe it was about Avraham. They all came ligmol chesed l'Sarah. Maybe they came to show honors and respect to Avraham, the wife of the president, the wife of the king. So in his honor they came. Maybe even a stronger question: ligmol chesed? I mean, these are Bnei Canaan. These are the people of Canaan. Are we not taught in this parsha that when Avraham looks for a shidduch for Yitzchak, he instructs Eliezer, lo sikach ishah livnai mibnos Canaan, because the Canaanim are completely— Completely vulgar people. Ein arim mizdabekim baruch. That's why Eliezer, who was even the doygel mashkim miToras rabbi la'acherim. Eliezer, who was the pride of, so to speak, and joy of the Canaanim, to the point that Avram considered him his greatest talmid, doygel mashkim miToras rabbi, skan beiso, neman. He was the neman beiso. And yet, ein arim mizdabekim baruch. The Canaanim is not for Avram's home. The Canaanim don't match Avram. In what way do the Canaanim not match Avram? What was the error? So we know there's an interesting Ran, that the Ran has a question. Avram wants a shidduch from the house of Lavan, from the house of Besuel. They were ovdei avodah zarah. Besuel had a house, as we're soon going to learn, full. Every corner had avodah zarah. Later on, the pesukim tell us that when Eliezer comes, he's being told by Besuel, Come in. Va'anochi pinisi habayis. I cleaned out the house. Makom lagmalim, and there's room even for the gemalim. What did he clean the house from? He cleaned the house from avodah zarah. Eliezer says, I'm not going to walk into such a house where every corner has in it a—

Avodah zarah. See, the Sefarim always say, Makom lakmalim, that even the gemalim didn't want to walk in there. It stank. There was a stench of avodah zarah that even the gemalim—don't forget, Avraham Avinu's gemalim, Avraham Avinu's cattle, they didn't graze in other people's fields. They walked around with a muzzle. They weren't exposed to the rishus and the aveirus of the chutz, of the street. So, makom lakmalim is even for the gemalim. There was a need to clean out the avodah zarah, because even the gemalim were sensitive to the atmosphere, the aroma, the abundance of avodah zarah that was in the home of Lavan. Now this is a vertel, all right? Yes. But the avada, the pshutah k'mashmao of the Gemara, of the Chazal, is that there was full of avodah zarah, and Eliezer couldn't walk in till it was cleaned out. Anochi panisi habayis min haavodah zarah. That's what Avraham wants. Imagine you write a shidduch to somebody. You know, the father, the grandfather—let's start with the grandfather. Ooh, what a baal avodah zarah. Ooh, the home, the home that this girl comes from, what are you talking about? Every step of the way there's a television. Okay, not avodah zarah, yeah? All the dirt of the street is in that house. The father, the son. How about the brother? You're supposed to check the brother to see what the shidduch is, right? You're supposed to be bodek b'achel. The brother is a liar, a thief, a gazlan, a money hungry. That's—you know what you would tell the shadchan? You're trying to read me a good shidduch or a bad shidduch? You mean for me? This is for me. And Avraham is saying, not only I want that, I'm searching for that. Paker, don't give me anything else but that. I mean, it's got to be. Are you right? Rivka is probably a tzaddekes. Okay, we got that. But look at the home. And you want the davka mimishpachte, you want davka that house, that home, that upbringing. That's what you're looking for. And to you, anything else is no good. Imagine if this is good. This is good for you. Das yea, das vilsta. This, no, this is no good. Imagine what he doesn't want. Imagine how bad what he doesn't want. And the Teretz says, says the Ran in the drashos, that we have avodah zarah, we have aveiros, yes, but that not necessarily is instilled in the children. It doesn't mean that the child will have to grow up to be a baal avodah zarah and a baal chaimed mamon and whatever the story and issues that these people had. Avraham will be able to uproot that. But bad middos, ah, that already is—that's orak. Yeah, that I can't have. The big midas, and that's why Eliezer checks into Rivka all about her middos. That's all. The mefarshim ask, why don't you check anything else, right? She gives me, she supplies me, she's feeding, she's feeding the camels. That's all you test, is to see how much that she wants to give. Why don't you check her yiras Shamayim, her tznius? And the mefarshim say it's all included, that if a person has chesed, then we can work and give her everything else. If a person doesn't have chesed, we can't even work with the person, and there's no way to uproot the chisronos, the problems that a person has if he doesn't have chesed. To change the upbringing of avodah zarah, of besul, the geneivah and the chemed and the lying of Lavan, we can all work with that, as long as the toichen of the person is chesed, his middos tovos, you hear? So it comes out a meyridige chiddush. Yes, Rivka was meyridik, but what was she exposed to? She was exposed to the worst home around, the worst home possible. There's a very famous chassidishe vort from the Belzer Rebbe zichrono livracha. The pasuk says that when Eliezer sees that the shidduch is happening, so originally he gives her the gold, right?

But then at the end it says he took out clothing. Clothing. So the Belzer Rebbe says, what's the pshat in the giving of the clothing? He says very simple. He's trying to show the clothing that they wear in Avram's home. It's not the same clothing. It's not the latest styles and fashions of France. It's not going to be that. You're not going to be able to have what they have on the streets and in the shops of Canaan. You're not going to be able to dress that way. It's a whole new dress code. So he takes out, the pasuk says, Vayotzi. He takes out clothing. Here, says the pasuk, Vayehi ka'asher shama eved Avraham es divrei adonav, vayishtachu artzah, Vayotzi ha'eved klei kesef u'klei zahav u'vegadim. U'vegadim. Why begadim? To show her the type of clothing that she's going to have to now wear. If she has a uniform, she has a whole new uniform she has to wear. You hear? Okay. So you see that Rivka was actually exposed, exposed to the bad and the troubles of the outside world. Yet Avram chooses Rivka, and the Ribbono Shel Olam, of course, was maskim that the Ribbono Shel Olam made, Eis Hashem, that this is the right zivug for Yitzchak, who was a kadosh kedoshah. Think of who Yitzchak was. Yitzchak was an olah temimah. He sat in his house, a heilige tzaddik, and yet Rivka was the right shidduch for him, regardless of everything she was exposed to. And the answer is because of her midas hachesed. When there's chesed, there's everything, and when there's no chesed, there's nothing. So, Arer Knaan, what Avraham hates about Canaan is that they're not baalei chesed. I don't know. We look at the beginning of the parsha, we find that the entire city, the entire Bnei Ches, came, ligmol. What, rabosai? Ligmol chesed l'Sarah. They closed their shops. You know what it is to make a person close his shop? How can you get a guy to give up a dollar? A Knaani should give up a dollar? Oy va la socher. Look how Ephron, Ephron is his businessman. We get to see what the tremendous businessman Ephron was. The negotiations for a dollar, for an extra penny, and yet the entire city stops working, bitul melachtam. You know what it is to get people to close their shop? And this is all what? Ligmol chesed. I thought they're not baalei chesed. This is a question that bothered me many years. Here you have a whole city. Do you know what take for the Bnei Ches? You see the Bnei— you see the baalei chesed. What, they didn't do chesed with you by the Mearas HaMachpeilah? You have an entire city of people did chesed, choose from them. Choose from them. These are the two questions, rabosai. One leads into the other, but these are the two questions that bothered me always on this parsha. One, how and why is it that the whole city comes, does chesed l'Sarah? Who said? Maybe it was chesed l'Avraham. Maybe they were doing it as an honor and respect. As a courtesy to Avram. And even more stronger, the question is, is it so that they did chesed? I thought they're not capable of doing chesed. I thought Canaan is arur, that they're not orim lizdabek in Boruch, and therefore they don't have any shayches to chesed. And here we find the whole town spent an entire day, closed their shops, all in the name and the sake of chesed. What's the pshat? I believe the perek is as follows. Later on, Takech, when Eliezer comes, Lavan runs towards him. Lavan runs towards him. Chazal tell us that he's running towards him, you know, to see, to get money out of him. It was all about how to kiss him, to see, to get money. There was jewelry. He wanted to pickpocket him. Yet when we read the pesukim, we don't get such a bad impression about Lavan. First of all, Vanochi pinisi habayis. Right away, he speaks to him, I cleaned out my avodah zarah. Why would he clean out his avodah zarah? Why would he clean out his—

Pasuk says, pasuk says, ... וַיִּקְרָא אֶת שְׁמוֹ נָזִיר ... וַיֹּאמֶר בָּרוּךְ ה'! ... He became a mamish a frum Yid, yeah, Baruch Hashem. ... I cleaned out my avodah zaras. That doesn't sound like such a big deal. I love him all of a sudden, huh? Even as we hear further, we see he talks to the Eibishter, the Eibishter, every third word is the Ribono Shel Olam. He answers, וַיַּעַן לָבָן וַיֹּאמֶר, מֵה' יָצָא הַדָּבָר. And then later on they give a bracha. What was the bracha? ... וְהָיִית לְאִישׁ לְבֶן ... דִּבֶּר ה' ... And then he continues, he gives her a bracha, אֲחֹתֵנוּ אַתְּ היי לְאַלְפֵי רְבָבָה, וְיִירַשׁ זַרְעֵךְ ... And we use this bracha by a chasunah. Lavan's bracha is being used by a chasunah. Wait a second, are we getting the right impression who Lavan is? On one hand we're learning that Lavan is a gangster and a liar and a cheater and all of a sudden the Torah gives us a whole different picture of Lavan, the Eibishter, the Eibishter, by Baruch Hashem. So there's a very famous vort from the Kotzker. Zogt the Kotzker, ah, you see what the Avodah Zarah is worth already. The whole house full of avodah zarah. In case he thought he can get a few dollars out of Eliezer, he's ready to trade it all in for a bissel avodah zarah, for a little money. With all the avodah zarah and all the worship and the respect that he has for his avodah zarah, he has a little bit in the back of his mind, a little idea that maybe Eliezer will come and give it. Ah, he trades it all in. Panisi habayis, he trades it all in for the money. Zogt the Kotzker. Rebbeisai, mir darf tzachte pashut pshat is as follows. If you notice, Eliezer speaks about emes. He speaks about emes. He says like this: V'atah im yeshchem osim chesed v'emes im adoni. And if not, what is the chesed v'emes? And also, what does he get? He tells Rabbeinu, he gives Rabbeinu a haidah: shehinchani b'derech emes. V'ekod v'eshtachaveh va'avarech es Hashem Elokei adoni Avraham, asher hinchani b'derech emes. You see the emphasis Eliezer sees here is about emes, truth, truth. So I always said a vort: why is he so impressed with the derech emes? Now when it comes to shidduch, Rebbeisai, people lie their heads off to get the shidduch, right? This, the chosson, the kallah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Eliezer is saying, Look how gevaldik the Rabbeinu Shlolem, the shidduch, huh? D'chani b'derech emes, that even though I said the truth, the shidduch happened. Normally, when it comes to a shidduch, you know, you have to cut off half the information, because half of it is all guzma. It's all guzma. You know, they say over a story. There was once a shadchan, yeah, that used to exaggerate, used to exaggerate. And everything he said, you knew you had to cut off half the information, half, because everything he said was with extreme exaggeration. So the shadchan, before he went to read the shidduch, his wife tells him, Listen to me, you know, people don't trust you because you never tell the truth. This time go into the people and tell them the truth. Tell them the truth. Tell them the truth. Kitza comes to the people, and he starts telling the people that the shidduch is gevaldik. The father, he sits and learns.

All day long. The wife gives him a kick under the table. Come on, you said you're not going to do this, right? Okay. So he starts saying, When I say all day long, I don't mean all day long. I mean all day long when he doesn't work. That's what I meant by all day long. She gives him another kick under the table. It's also not true. What I meant, all day long, whenever he has time to learn, he learns. So she gives him another kick under the table. She's thinking to herself, But what does she want me to say? What am I supposed to say? So the real answer he was supposed to say is, He takes time and he learns, right, without the exaggeration. The moron didn't catch because his wife kept on kicking him. So she turns around to his wife and says, One more kick, give me under the table, I'm going to tell them that the guy doesn't learn a word. He doesn't know how to learn at all. And that's what's going to be the end of the story. One more kick under the table. The point is, when it comes to a shidduch, we exaggerate and exaggerate. Sometimes the best thing is just to tell the truth. And when is it, when do we see that the shidduch is kosher? When do we see that the shidduch is the right shidduch? The shidduch is right when I told the emes and the parties are happy with it. Then you know it's Hashem yatza hadavar. And Chani b'derech emes, Eliezer is saying, Look, I told you the truth. I told you, Eliezer, eved Avraham, I gave you the whole rundown of what the shidduch is about, and I didn't exaggerate. I didn't have to make up stories that he's a geshmakke guy. You know, sometimes you have a shidduch, you got to build it up. Is he a lebedige guy? Yeah, he's a geshmakke guy, and the guy doesn't say two words. I can imagine that Yitzchak wasn't this big shmoozer. We're going to learn this later. The Rishonim say that they almost didn't talk. Yitzchak and Rivka כמעט didn't talk. So could you imagine you come to a shidduch and you tell him, you know, my son, my shidduch, the boy I'm trying to red the shidduch for, he doesn't talk at all. He's an extremely serious, quiet, who would go near a thing like that? So what do you have to do? Yeah, he's בעצם, he's a pretty geshmakke guy. He talks. Eliezer came and told the truth, that Yitzchak was a kadosh, and he needs a shidduch that's going to be this. Are you still maskim? That's pshat in chani b'derech emes. Eliezer's saying, look, I went with emes, and look what came out. And I wanted to say a little bit deeper, rabosai. I think the lesson that's to be taken from this, that when it's emes, it's mashpia. It penetrates even people who are ganovim and liars and shakranim and koifrim. The truth, the truth surfaces to the top. You can't stifle the truth. Lavan, Lavan, the gangster, the liar, b'sul, the koifer. They listen to Eliezer, and they see the yad Hashem in the shidduch. All of a sudden they talk, Baruch Hashem. All of a sudden they say, Me'Hashem yatza hadavar, because emes is emes. When you come with the midah of emes, you can't cover it, you can't hide it, you can't bury it. You know, there's an interesting lashon. Emes—it's a pasuk, Emes me'eretz titzmach. The lashon emes, from the eretz titzmach, it'll grow. Why is emes me'eretz? It's coming from the land, from the ground. So the Kotzker Rebbe, zichrono livrachah, used to say, Zeh pashut. Chazal tell us that when the Eibishter wanted to create the world, the midas ha'emes said, Don't do it, because the world is all sheker, it's all lies. The midah of sheker said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, it's great, it's gevaldik, because kulo shekarim. So the emes didn't want the world to be created. The sheker said, Create. So what did the Eibishter do? The Eibishter took the emes, hishlich emes me'eretz.

The Eibishter threw the emes to the ground and pushed it away on the side, and He created the world. Says the Kotzker, you know, everybody, when you talk to them, they always say they're looking for the truth. They're searching the truth. Why do you have to search for? Chazal tell us where the truth is. The truth is on the ground. It says clearly, the Eibishter took the truth and He threw it to the ground. So you know where it is. What are you searching for it? Says the Kotzker, you know what the problem is? The emes is on the ground, and you know where it is, but you got to bend to get it. People don't like to bend. We all know where the emes is, says the Kotzker. Why don't you go and get it? You're searching for it. And the answer is because you got to bend down to get it. People don't like to bend. That's what the Kotzker used to say, a sharp vort. I would like to say the pshat in the pasuk, Emes mei eretz. Why mei eretz? Because people bury it. But titzmach, it's going to sprout out because you can't bury the emes. Emes mei eretz, because you bury the emes. People cover it over. People hide it. People don't want to bring it out. But as much as you try to hide it, the emes surfaces. Emes mei eretz titzmach. This, I believe, is a lesson to be learned in the story of Eliezer. Eliezer is talking to the thief of the world, Besuel. Lavan. Yeah. And they have no shaykhus to emes. They have nothing. They're koifrim. Besuel, his lack of emes led him to avodah zarah. Lavan's lack of emes led him to be a thief, a ganef. I've told you many times that even the name Lavan—where did he get his name Lavan? Lavan means white. He was actually dark. He was almost like a black person. But because he was such a liar, he was known as Lavan. He walked around saying, I'm a Lavan. A person who's black walks around telling everyone, I'm Lavan. Why? Because he was inherently—he was inherently a liar. He was a complete faker. And yet, Eliezer is bringing a whole new thing called emes. Emes. And that's what the pasuk says. He says clearly. He says clearly that—and Eliezer notices this—V'atah im yeshchem osim chesed v'emes. This is a chesed where you're going to have to deal with it with emes. And that's what it says in the pasuk of V'archas Hashem Elokei adoni Avraham, asher hinchani b'derech emes. The emphasis is on the emes. And when there's emes, it's mashpia. It's mashpia even on people who are far, far, far from the emes, who have nothing to do with the emes. And that's how Lavan and that's how Besuel are able to talk things which we use today: our chasena, tehillah, vavah, bracha. Because it came from the anus. It came, it came from the anus. But this, rabosai, I think we can go back to explain, ligmoel chesed. How do you do chesed? I thought that Canaanim, I thought Canaan has nothing to do with chesed. And the teretz is, you know, Avraham Avinu, according to many Rishonim, this was a new chapter in Avraham Avinu's nisyonos. It's machlokes Rishonim. According to many Rishonim, that the end of the asarah nisyonos was the Akedah. According to many Rishonim, it was over here, that this was part. The fact that he had to come to bury Sarah, and buy the Me'aras HaMachpelah was a chelek, was a part of the asarah nisyonos. What was the nisayon in it? So the Rishonim say, shelo hirher. He wasn't meharher. The Ribono Shel Olam says, I'm going to give you Canaan, so he should have gotten Canaan. Why does he have to come now and buy Canaan? Why does he have to come and get a piece of the land by buying it? And the teretz is, the Eibishter wants. So the fact that he wasn't meharher was a...

It was one of his nisyonos. I wanted to say maybe the taich is, Avraham Avinu, with every one of his nisyonos, he instilled in Klal Yisroel tremendous koiches. Like Reb Chaim Volozhin explains that every nisayon wasn't just for that time. Every nisayon was for the generations later. Here he was instilling the inyan of chesed kevurah, chesed shel emes. Kevurah is called chesed shel emes. Why is it called chesed shel emes? Chazal say, she'eino metzapeh l'shul tagmul. He's not looking to receive anything because of this chesed. Put the airגן, a little bit hot in here. A little bit here, so open the window. Open the middle, open the middle. It's free. Open the door. Yes, good. ... She'eino metzapeh l'shul tagmul. He's not looking for anything, and because he's not looking for anything, it's called a chesed. Okay, good, good, this is good. Okay, this is good. He's not looking for anything, right? So what's the pshat? Chesed, chesed shel emes means that he's doing chesed, a whole new type of chesed. It's a chesed shel emes. It's a chesed to the last chesed that you do with a person, that you do chesed like the Eibishter. The Eibishter's kover meisim. It's mamish the darkei shel HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You're following in the ways of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So Avraham is instilling, and if you learn the parsha, you see how Avraham Avinu gives the last kavod to Sarah. You notice he does it himself. Why does Avraham have to go himself to negotiate the makom kever? Let him send his people. You know, in English there's an expression, my peoples and your peoples will get together, we'll... Does Avraham send anybody to negotiate? No, he takes care of it himself. Avraham takes care of it himself. It says in the pasuk, Vayavo Avraham lispod l'Sarah v'livkosah. Notice that it says first lispod l'Sarah and then livkosah. And the Acharonim ask a kasha. It's supposed to be the first three days livchi and the rest is lhesped. So first comes bechi and then comes hesped. There's also a question, why is it a little chaf, v'livkosah, a small chaf? So the mefarshim say because he didn't cry so much for her; she was older. I would like to say a pshat like this: bechi, you cry for yourself. Hesped is for the other person. Vayavo Avraham lispod l'Sarah v'livkosah. The ikar by him was Sarah. It wasn't about him. V'livkosah, the crying for him was little, like the Rishonim said. But the Vayavo Avraham lispod, the hesped was for who? L'Sarah. It was kavod hameis. This is to be gomil chesed. Which chesed? Chesed shel... Emes. And just like at the end of the parsha, Eliezer's doing chesed, which was emes, was mashpia on Lavan, on Besuel. Here too, I believe that the chesed that Avraham showed to bury Sarah was mashpia. You see, it left an influence on all of the Bnei Ches, and they also closed their stores, ligmoil chesed im Sarah. Avraham Avinu's actions impacted everyone around him because it was about emes. Avraham Avinu was about emes. And when there's emes, it's able to penetrate the greatest and deepest and thickest ra, to bring forth truth and light, enlightenment. Eliezer at the end of the parsha is among snakes, Besuel. You know that they wanted to kill him, chapela. First Besuel wanted to kill him. Chazal say clearly he poisoned the soup. And yet in the Torah we look and we read a beautiful story.

What happened? And the Torah says it took a murderer beshogeg. It took an oved avodah zarah beshogeg. And he recognizes the emes. He recognizes Avraham Avinu's stamp of chesed, chesed v'emes, in Eliezer, and it influenced them that now they talk mamash, Baruch Hashem and Baruch Hashem and chasdei Hashem and Hashem yatza hadavar. Influence, you see? Eliezer with his truth, Eliezer with the chesed that he comes from the house of Avraham. I once saw a very nice pshat, if you notice there was kefitzas haderech. Va'asi hayom. He tells Lavan, I came today. Rashi, Chazal say that there was kefitzas haderech. Why did he need kefitzas haderech? So the Chiddushei Sefarim, it's brought, that he didn't want that he should have too much time away from the house of Avraham. It would take a few more—who knows how he would get influenced from Canaan. It had to be directly from Avraham's house right to the shidduch and right back. Chassidim, if you're away from the Rebbe, if you're away from the mekor habrachah, you're looking for trouble to be influenced. It needed to be right out of the house of Avraham, with kefitzas haderech, quickly and heading right back, because the outside influence was very strong. And what did Eliezer come with? Eved Avraham anochi. I'm speaking like the eved Avraham, the influence from Avraham's house. That influence. was able to penetrate into Lavan, as long as there was chesed, as long as there was chesed. The Knaanim, you're right, they didn't have chesed. Avraham says, I can't do a shidduch with you. But it was enough that when they saw the chesed, they saw the kevurah, they saw the levayah, they were moved by that chesed. They were moved by that chesed. And because they were moved by that chesed, bo'u likmol chesed. They themselves came to do chesed with Sarah. When you do chesed, understand that it influences all the people around you. You do chesed, it influences all the people around you. Shidduchim, you can't do a shidduch with a person who is not בעצם a baal chesed. But even someone who is like the Bnei Ches was able to be gomel chesed when they saw it. When they saw the chesed, they were also able to give up the store, so to speak, and the money for that hour or two, to be gomel chesed. Does that mean it's... yes, it's still arum, it's still Eliezer. One has nothing to do with the other. But to be influenced, the influence is there. That's what you see. Will it change the person? Probably not. But it carries with it that people follow. People will follow the truth. People will... You're right, when you leave, they're going to go back right to who they were. That's obviously what's bothering you. Yeah, they're going to go back to being Bnei Ches and Ganovim and Efron. But at that moment when you see it, when you see the truth, it's so strong. The influence is so powerful that even an entire city like Bnei Ches closed the store, likmol chesed im Sarah, and that's what Eliezer was able to accomplish with his chesed v'emes, im chani b'derech emes. That at that moment, Lavan drops all his avodah zaras, and he drops all his shekarim, and he drops all his thievery and knavery. Emes. Baruch Hashem, I see the yad Hashem. What is this? This is Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu influences. Avraham Avinu influences through chesed. You know, even the way Avraham Avinu dealt with the Levayah. It wasn't just chesed for Sarah, the respect that he gave the people around him, the Bnei Ches, the meforshim talk about it, the sensitivity to respect the people. Why? Because by Avraham it came from the midah of chesed. The levayah was chesed, and chesed means chesed to everyone around the levayah, chesed around the levayah. I always give two examples to this. Remember, Rav Nissen Alpert, zichrono livracha, was Rav Moshe's talmid, the great Rav Nissen Alpert, he was a tremendous gadol baTorah, and Rav Nissen...

His son Reb Shaya was niftar, young boy, he was 21, 22, a youngster, and it was a tremendous tragedy. We all went to the levaya because of that. I was a bachur at the time. I couldn't swallow the tragedy, you know, a 21, 22-year-old bachur just suddenly passed away. So I went to this levaya, and I stood behind Reb Nissan Alpert as he walks behind the aron, and I was looking to see, to study, you know, how a father reacts by the levaya of a child. Something—I was a bachur at the time—something that touched my interest. And I remember seeing clearly, I saw with my own eyes. It's not a secondhand story or a story I read somewhere. I saw with my own eyes. Reb Nissan Alpert took out an envelope out of his pocket. He was walking behind the aron of his son. He gives it to the person standing next to him, and he says, I knew I would see you by the levaya. This is money that I put away for tzedakah, and I wanted to take care of it for quite a while. I just never met you, and I knew I would see you by the levaya, so I took it with me, and here's the money for the tzedakah. I saw it with my own eyes. This echoes the beginning of the parsha, rabosai, that Avraham Avinu could come to bury Sarah, and yet the people around him are treated with the utmost derech eretz. Why? Because even the burial of Sarah wasn't a personal—it wasn't v'livkosah. It wasn't about him crying what he lost, but lispod l'Sarah was about Sarah, was about chesed, was about chesed shel emes. Second episode and story I'd like to share with you is, my brother always reminds me of this, that with my Zeidy's levaya, a lot of people. It was a big levaya. He was a rav. He had many people. There was a person in Borough Park. He was known. He never suffered an accident when he was a little boy. He was hit by a bat. And because of that, throughout the years, he wasn't well. But he would go to brisin, and he would go to bar mitzvahs and levayas, and he would, you know, push himself into the forefront of the event. By a bris, he would stand over the mohel and tape it. There was a famous, I don't want to mention his name, I think he was rav in Nifter recently, so he should be me'eilitz yosher, a Yid. But unfortunately, he wasn't well. At the Zeidy's levaya, he pushed himself into the hearse to sit next to my father. My father sat in the front. The hearse goes, and there's room for one person to sit in the front and a driver. So my father went. He pushed himself in between the driver and my father. And I remember they were, like, trying to push him out, go out of the car. And my father said, Leave him. What's wrong? He wants to sit there. Let him. He can go. Let him sit there. And from Brooklyn to Queens, from Queens to the airport, he sat in the car, in the hearse, in the front seat together with my father. This is Vayishtachu l'am artz pnei ches. Even at a time where you have a kvurah of a family member, it could have been a wife, like by Avraham, or a father, like by my—the case of my father was his father, who he loved so much. When it's chesed, when it's not personal, it's chesed to the people around you. And that's what the Bnei Ches see. The Bnei Ches are exposed to pure chesed, Torahdike chesed, chesed shel emes. Sfas Emes explains, why is it called chesed shel emes? Emes means Torah. Torah is emes. Emes is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. This is a chesed which is not regular human chesed. It's chesed shel emes. It's chesed of Torah. It's chesed of the Eibishter. It's a whole different type of chesed. And the Bnei Ches, seeing this, are exposed and moved that they themselves are coming to do ligmol chesed im Avram. And where does this come from? Because Avram lived his life that whatever he did had a hashpaah. It influenced the people around him, and that was the koach of Avram. Like we've spoken many times, that Avram Avinu, l'maan asher yetzaveh es banav es beiso acharav, he was mashpia. Avram, even by not talking, he didn't have to give speeches. Avram, by who he is, by who Avram was, it was mashpia. It influenced everyone around him, including Bnei Ches, including Canaan, including the people that he lived. And I think this is pshat in the pasuk in this week's parsha as well. It says in the pasuk that Avram Avinu...

Eliezer, לסיקח אישה לבני מבנות כנען אשר אנכי יושב בקרבו. בקרבו. Yet Eliezer, when he repeats over this conversation to Lavan, what does he say? That Avraham said, לסיקח אישה לבני מבנות הארץ אשר אנכי יושב בארצי. Why does he switch from בקרבו to בארצי? The Taz, Divrei David, asks this for a question, and the Taz answers that originally Avraham said, אשר אנכי יושב בקרבו, even with the Canaan that I sit literally with them, Eliezer included. He was telling him, לסיקח אישה לבני מבנות כנען אשר אנכי יושב, even the one that's בקרבו, in my house. Eliezer—I mean you, Eliezer. Eliezer doesn't want to hear this, right? אלי, אולי. Eliezer's negius. He wanted Eli. So he makes it, אשר אנכי יושב, that Avraham actually didn't say בקרבו. What did he say? בארצי. He lives, but not the ones that are close to him. He didn't exclude me. How many times that we give mussar and the guy thinks, Oh, how does he know my friend so well, right? He didn't mean me. I must have meant my friend, right? Negius means you never hear that it's about you and that you're the issue and you're the address that the mussar or the tochachah is supposed to go here to. Avraham is telling him, Don't take an אישה לבני מבנות כנען אשר אנכי יושב בקרבו—you included. And he doesn't hear בקרבו. What does he hear? He hears, אנכי יושב בארצי. Yeah, he didn't mean me. He didn't need me. Chassidishe sefarim write, they say from the Sar Shalom, the Belzer Rebbe, the Sar Shalom, a beautiful deher. Avraham is saying, I don't want to take Yishov livni, mibnos Knaan, asher אנכי יושב בקרבו. I see what's inside them. I'm sitting in them. Chassidei Rebbes have a koach, tzaddikim have a koach to see in you. I've told this to you many times, that the first time I met Bava Sali, I was terrified. I was thinking, he could see in you. He could see in you. Who knows what he sees? Baruch Hashem, I came out b'shalom, like as if he didn't see such terrible things in me. But, אנכי יושב בקרבו. Why does Eliezer change it? says the Sar Shalom. Could you imagine he tells Lavan that the future shver is a mind reader, and he's a Rebbe, and he's able to see right through you? He'd get scared. I remember there was once a Yid who told me — I'm not going to mention his name — he's a choshen l'vracha, he's not alive anymore, I used to learn with him b'chavrusa, Alter Yid, and he told me, I'll tell you the truth, I don't want to learn in your Zeidy's house, the shul. I don't want to. Maybe we can learn in a different shul. I said, What's the problem? He says, Every time I come in, I have this feeling that your Zeidy reads right through me. I'm scared. I don't feel comfortable. He said, I think — now, I don't know if what he meant by Zeidy had this ruach hakodesh like Bava Sali. I think he just meant that my Zeidy was smart enough that he read right through the person. He spoke in three words, and he already knew who he was talking to. Asher אנכי יושב. Eliezer is thinking, I'm going to go tell this to Lavan. I want you to read what's going on inside me. I'd rather be able to smile at you and make believe everything's fine, and you shouldn't have to know what's inside me. I don't want to deal with people that know, that are able to read what's deep inside me. So what does he do, Eliezer? He switches it to what? Asher אנכי יושב. Not bikirbi, but b'artzi. Reb Yankele Pshavosky, he was the rebbe in Belgium, the famous Reb Yankele, the tzaddik, he says, You know what I learned from this vort from the Sar Shalom? Chassidus, you shouldn't talk to everybody about Chassidus. Not everybody gets it. The whole Chassidus, the hair, the rebbe, Avraham Avinu was able to see inside the person. Eliezer says, You know what? Let's leave that when we're in Avraham's house. Such Chassidish rayeines, such thoughts of—these are already not for the simple. Nish mit alemen zol men redn Chassidus. Good. I would say, rabosai, a third pshat. Why does Avraham say, אשר אנכי יושב בקרבי, and Eliezer switches it, אשר אנכי יושב בארצי? And the pshat is as follows. Avraham is saying, When I live among people, it's bikirbi. I live with the people.

You think I don't pay attention to my neighbors? I care. I'm mashpia. I try. I try to influence the community. .... Zeide told me that the one thing, the culture difference between Europe and America that he had to get used to when he moved to America after the war, he says, the expression of mind your own business. He says, I just couldn't. You go into a yid, yeah? Here in America, you don't see him from Shabbos to Shabbos, right? Everybody's who knows where during the week. Shabbos you meet the guy in shul. You can tell him, you know, I see something's bothering. Mind your own business. Today they even have an expression for it: MYOB. They tell you MYOB. It became such a part of the language that it's so, MYOB, MYOB, mind your own business. It is my business. I mean, I care about you. My brother, you're my fellow yid. He says, he just, in Europe there wasn't such an idea. What do you mean, if another yid is in trouble or bothering him something and not feeling well, it was my business. He had a problem with a child, it was his business, it was my business. Here, stay away. Mind your own business. They say over that the Radbaz lived in Egypt, and they asked him, How you talking you can live in Egypt? You're not allowed to live in Egypt. To which he replied, I don't live in Egypt. I live in my house. My house happens to be in Egypt. You see, this is what Avraham is saying: ... b'kirbi. Lavan, he's thinking, why I'm gonna send my daughter to a guy who runs around helping everybody and he's busy? No, I want a residential area for my daughter. I want she should live in an upscale neighborhood where everybody lives in his own house and everybody has their own life and nobody's, it's not your business, mind your own business, yeah? So Eliezer says to him, You will have to be a citizen of the town, but a citizen of the town doesn't mean I care about my neighbors. That's what I would say, the pshat, if they say, yeah. There's one thing: a person comes and he cares and it bothers him and he influences the neighbors and the people, and Avraham Avinu is that. אשר אנכי יושב בקרבו. Eliezer says, אשר אנכי יושב בארץ, distance. There's no בקרבו. It's not we don't live mamish attached one to the other. אשר אנכי יושב בארץ. The point that I'm trying to bring out is that when it comes to middos, when it comes to chesed, chesed is v'nir'eh, it's contagious. When you do things, it's mashpia. A person is supposed to be kind and caring and loving and giving, that he's mashpia on the sviva. Now every day we daven, we ask the Eibishter, שים בליבנו להבין, להשכיל, לשמוע, ללמוד, ללמד. Lilmod u'lelamed, to teach. The Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Meir says, a tal. The Rosh Yeshiva asks, Lilameid, to teach. What happens if I'm not a rebbi? Everybody's a lamed. How could a person who's not a rebbi say, Lilmaid ulelamed? Answers the Rosh Yeshiva, that's not true. Every person can teach. Some people teach in the classroom, yeah. Others are not rabbeim, but they can teach with actions. Torah, the way you behave is mashpia on the people around you. Lilmaid, I ask the Eibishter that the Torah should be something that's part of me, that I learn it and I'm a lamed it, which means that when you look at it, when you look at the person, lamed, you learn from him. It's positive. It's something that turns the person and says, you know, I want to be like that. I want to do that also. Will it change the person forever? Maybe not. Will it have an everlasting... No, but at the moment, the person, the yetzer, you know, look at this, look at this. You know what? I'd like to do the same thing. That was the koach of Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu was able to be mashpia on a whole world through his actions, through his actions, through his actions of chesed, through his actions of emes. And this is the shidduch, the...

The mentchlus of the shidduch that Eliezer is bringing to Lavan: chesed v'emes, chesed v'emes. And it has its effect, and it has its effect. This is chesed. Chesed is contagious, as they say. But when? When it's chesed of emes, of truth, chesed of emes, of truth. And where do you see the chesed shel emes? It's not only I do chesed with one person. There's a very famous Chazal, he spoke about it, that the chasidah is called a chasidah. Why? She'oseh chesed im chavroseha. It does chesed with its friends. Mefareshim ask, why is she oif tameiah? It's a good thing. I thought all the animals that are tamei is because they have inherently bad middos. The Rambam says like this. So why is this bird, who's a chasidah, considered a bad animal or oif tamei? She's oseh chesed im chavroseha. And the pshat, rabosai, I believe is that her chesed is selfish. And therefore it's oseh chesed im chavroseha only. And therefore what? So for everyone else it becomes tamei, because the chesed, it's not mashpia. It's not pure, and because it's not pure, it doesn't influence chesed, it doesn't influence the higher. It's actually tamei. You see, when the chesed is a selfish, self-centered—people do a lot of chesed. You know, I'll tell you a nice maiseh. Reb Sholom Shvadron brings in this week's parsha a very nice thing. He says, Roidei tzedakah v'chesed, tzedakah v'chesed, ze Avram. This is Avram, that he went to bury his wife. Frekt Reb Sholom Shvadron, zicher tzaddik livrachah, but who doesn't bury his wife? Well, he deserves a special shout-out, as a shout-out, Yasher koach, Avram, you did chesed. It's his wife. What do you want him to do? Emes, Reb Sholom Shvadron, a lot of what we spoke over here, that the chesed wasn't about him, that he had to bury his wife, but it was all about his wife. And he brings a very nice story from Reb Isaac Sher, that he said that Reb Sholom said that I was once walking to the doctor with my child, and Reb Isaac Sher, the chevra neresh yeshiva, the Slabodka Rosh Yeshiva, came over to me and asked me, Tell me, where are you going, Reb Sholom? He said, I'm going to the doctor with my son. He says, I want to tell you something. You think you care about your son? The whole world cares about their children. Even animals care about their children. So what makes the human being you over the animal? And the difference is, the animal is because it's his child. The leopard or the lion or whatever it is cares about his cub, his child. A Yid, when he does chesed with his son, besides that it's his son, he also has that he's doing chesed for the son, for the child, for the person. It's not focused strictly on the me, but on the other person. So maybe he converted. He says it's a lesson in chesed. The mashal brought this story out, and I think it fits very much what we're speaking. Oyse chesed im chavroi secha. What's wrong? And the answer is, im chav... my, the my. Once you stick the my in there, then it's already a whole different structure of chesed, you hear? Chesed v'emes. That's kvurah. That's Avraham Avinu in the beginning of this parsha, and that's why it's one of the Aseres Nisyonos, because he instilled in Klal Yisrael the koach, the midah of chesed shel emes. Later on, this chesed v'emes Eliezer takes with him, the message and the lessons and the mussar and the maila of chesed v'emes, and he introduces this to a Lavan and a Besuel, gangsters of gangsters. Yet it's mashpia. Yet it's able to penetrate, and that to the point that Lavan admits the emes, and that Lavan says, Baruch Hashem, it's Hashem yatza hadavar, because you can't deny emes. You can't bury the emes, because emes me'eretz titzmach. The middas emes are mashpia on the svivah around you. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.