Parshas Devarim: Eicha and the Roots of the Churban in Disrespect and Bad Middos

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Moshe Rabbeinu gives mussar to Klal Yisrael. Eileh hadevarim asher diber Moshe el kol Yisrael. Rashi, lefi shehein divrei tochachos, the parashah of Devarim is strong mussar. It's interesting that the mussar that's given by Moshe Rabbeinu, if you delve into some of the details in some of the pesukim, you'll realize that the mussar wasn't only for that dor. The mussar actually was bringing out the shoreshim, the roots, of many of the problems in the future generations, including the Churban Bayis. It's all within the pesukim. If you look carefully, you'll notice that Moshe Rabbeinu was already predicting in the tochachah that these aveiros are not just from the time of the Midbar. These are not just at that juncture, but things that will cause churban eventually to Klal Yisrael. There's a minhag that when you read pasuk yud-beis, Vaysheni eicha esa levadi, tochachem u'masachem v'rivchem. Eicha, the word Eicha. We know that the word Eicha is also used to lament the Churban Habayis, Eicha, Megillas Eicha. Is there a connection to Eicha, esel levadi, torchachem u'masa'achem v'rivchem? Ashkenaz has a minhag that when they read this pasuk, they read it in the nusach and the niggun of Eicha. Eicha esel levadi, torchachem u'masa'achem v'rivchem. How did this get into Eicha? You're right, it's the same word, the word Eicha. But how is it connected to Eicha, Megillah, Churban? So if you look at Chazal, it actually is already pointed out in the Chazal that this pasuk is connected. The Medrash in Eicha, in the Hakdamah, says that three used the word Eicha. Moshe Rabbeinu used the word Eicha, Yeshayahu used the word Eicha, and then Yirmiyahu, we know, used the word Eicha, Eicha yashvah vadad. And each was lamenting in a different juncture of Klal Yisrael, in a different stage of Klal Yisrael's fruition. Moshe Rabbeinu saw Klal Yisrael b'sifarto, in its beauty. Klal Yisrael is beginning now the start of an illustrious, illustrious beginning to a big future. Yeshayahu saw it b'chuzusah, which means when it was starting to— So Yiridah is not mevaklin zach, it's starting to deteriorate. Yirmiyah, Soreh ben Ivlusa, and each one said eicha. So you see already Chazal connected the eicha in this pasuk to the eicha, Eicha isha lezonah, to the eicha, Yashva vadad ha'ir rabasiam. What's the connection? Rabbi Yisroel Salanter explains that actually Chazal are telling us that the problems began already here. Whatever brought out the churban is already in this pasuk. And Moshe Rabbeinu, with his tochachah, foresaw that there's going to be one day a big problem. The eicha Yashva vadad was pre-prophesized here. Eicha esha levadi. There's going to be an eicha Yashva vadad. He brings an example: it's a fruit. You know how a fruit rots? It doesn't turn rotten in one minute. One part becomes a little bit, rots more and more till it rots till you find the complete rot.

Rabbeinu zooms in on the fruit, and he sees, Eicha, here it is. This is betifarta. He was able to detect it. Klal Yisrael was birum hamaila. It was in the midbar. It was with hashraas hashchina, with the Mishkan, on its way to Eretz Yisrael after Matan Torah. Betifarta. He was able to notice, ah, there's going to be an Eicha. Where? Why? What caused this nevuah, Eicha? And the answer is, Tarchachem, masaachem, v'rivchem. You know, rabosai, I've mentioned to you many times that the inyan of the taanisim, the fact that we fast, and as well I proved to you the aveilus is also part of this, that we keep three weeks, or nine days of aveilus, is all to remind us, as the Rambam says in Hilchos Taanis, perek hei, halacha aleph, to remind us that our aveiros today are no different than the aveiros of the past. That these aveiros, the same ones, what we do today and they did then, caused the churban and our tzaros today. So we don't only think about what they did; we have to think about what we do. It's from first Rambam. That's just like what they did that caused them the churban and it continuously causes us to not have a Beis HaMikdash and have tzaros. So here, according to Rabbi Yisroel Salanter... We're beginning to see what it is that was the birur ma'asim from the root. Chazal are full by telling us what were the aveiros of the time of the Churban. But here we have a pasuk, a Rashi, and a Rabbi Yisroel Salanter who explains to us that the root of it all began in the Midbar. The root of all eichas begins here in the Midbar, and that is Tarchachem, Masachem, v'Rivchem. What is it? What should we take out from this and try to see that we might be doing the same thing? What is it? So let's read Rashi. Tarchachem, melamed shehayu Yisrael tarchanim. They were difficult. Kol echad meihem ro'eh et baal dino nitzach b'din. When he sees somebody winning, he would say, Yesh li edim l'havi. I have more proof, which means nobody gave in. Gave in when it came to right and wrong. They brought rayos. It doesn't say that they cheated or lied. No, more rayos and more rayos, moysif ani aleichem dayanim. Dishonesty. Now, is it something which is out in the open? No. I have the right. I have the right to be mosif edim. I have the right to bring more dayanim. I'm not doing anything wrong. So why is it so bad? And the answer is, at some point, you can't give in to the truth. And you cover it over with, I have proof, and I have dayanim. Why can't you be honest? Why can't you be honest within yourself the truth? He won. He's right. But you can't be honest, and you can't admit. You can't give in. You know, there's a very famous Beis Halevi that questions how come when a rav paskens on a chicken or even a cow, it could be a big hefsed, it could be a loss of a lot of money. The person who came to ask the shaila accepts the psak of the rav. Not kosher. Fine, he throws it out. It's not kosher. The rav said it's not kosher. It could be a lot of money involved. When two people have a din Torah, it could be over twenty dollars. The rav paskens he's right and you're wrong, that guy will start cursing the rav. What are you talking about? It's not true. It's only twenty dollars. The same person the week before was ready to throw a whole cow in the garbage because the rav paskened that it's assur. What's the difference? And the answer is, yeah, issur v'heter. But to say that the other person is right, that he can't say. When it comes to—

Isurim, okay, a Yid is maskim. It might be a lot more money for him, the issur, to say it's asur and throw it out. But when he has to say on the twenty dollars that the other guy won, that's no good. And what happens? We cover it over. No, I mean it l'shem Shamayim, I mean it for the truth. And deep down, it's the farthest thing from the truth. Let's learn the next Rashi. Masachem, melamed shehaya Apikorsim. Apikorsim, why? Hikdim Moshe latzeis. Moshe went out. Amru, ma ra ben Amram latzeis. Why is Ben Amram going out so early? So first of all, it's interesting, he doesn't have a name. His name is not Rameisha, Rameisha Rabbeinu. Ben Amram. Yeah. Zilzul. It's a zilzul. Yeah, you talk—hey, ma ra Moshe Rabbeinu. No, Ben Amram, yeah. Shema eino shafur b'sadeh. Maybe there's no shalom bayis, that's why he's leaving early. Icher latzeis. What happens if he came late? He would leave late? Amru, they would say the opposite: ma ra ben Amram shelo latzeis. Ma atem sovrim? What do you think? Yoshev v'yotzelichem eitzes ra'os. He must be sitting thinking bad things about you, v'choshev aleichem machshavos, which means whatever Moshe did, he couldn't win. Couldn't win. You know, it's called apikorsus. Why is it apikorsus? Shehayu apikorsim. L'choira it should be called shehayu... they were tarchanim, like the pasuk says. They were chutzpenyakes. They were az panim. Why do we call them apikorsim? And the truth is, we could say halachically, Moshe Rabbeinu was the Av haNeviim, and anyone who is makchish in the Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim, one of the animamins is Moshe Rabbeinu is the Av haNeviim, so maybe that's why you're an apikores. Maybe. Maybe that's all Rashi means. Shehayu apikorsim because they undermined Moshe Rabbeinu. But they didn't say anything about his nevuah, really. They didn't say that he's not a navi, he's not Moshe Rabbeinu. You know what the teretz is, rabosai? They were apikorsim from root. You see, every big aveirah is rooted in a lack of derech eretz. Every big aveirah is rooted in a lack of bein adam l'chaveiro, and a bein adam l'Rabbo. There's a root where there's a breakdown in kavod haTorah, kavod habriyos, kavod chaveirim. It starts with that shoresh ra. That's where the shoresh is. But you know what it brings l'maaseh? That you're an apikores. At the end of the day is you're an apikores, and at the end of the day is the result will be eichah. Eicha levad, איכה לבדו. I'm going to repeat it. I think it's a big yesod. Doik, analyze. Every big aveirah starts with a bad middah, bein adam l'chaveiro. Korach was an apikores at the end. The Brisker Rav tells us this. The Koirach said there was no Torah min haShamayim, and there was no Moshe Rabbeinu, he's not the navi. Where did it start? It started from a bad midah: machlokes, gaivah. It starts, the shoresh of it is a bad midah. The result is, apikoires. Eichah esa levadi torchachem u'masa'achem v'rivchem. You're fighting here. You're fighting. There's something wrong when you come and you fight. When you come and have lack of derech eretz with talmidei chachamim. When you're fighting over a penny just to win. The shoresh is this; the result is eichah. And I'll tell you where I got this yesod from. Later on, Moshe Rabbeinu gives mussar to Klal Yisrael for the meraglim. Says the pasuk, Vatikravun elai kulchem.

Vatikrenu alai kulchem. Oh, shlishi. Vatikrenu alai kulchem, vatoimru, and you said, Nishl'chah anashim lefaneinu, send the meraglim. Says Rashi, what does it mean, vatikrenu alai kulchem? You all came close to me. What's the negea? Let me just say, you came to me. Vatikrenu alai kulchem. Says Rashi, b'Arvuvya. You came in harganza, hatumul. You made a tumult. Arvuvya is tumult, harganza, fatumul. And what is it? Mixed. And Rashi says, notice by Matan Torah it wasn't like that. By Matan Torah it was the zekeinim, and then afterwards it was the younger. They came in order: Rosheichem, shivteichem, zikneichem. That was good. But here, oh, it wasn't yeladim mechamnim es hazekeinim, farkert. B'Arvuvya, yeladim doichim es hazekeinim. U'zekeinim doichim es haroshim. Can I ask you a question? When somebody gives a person mussar for a very serious crime, do you have to throw on him also, by the way, he double parked in front of the courthouse? If you had a judge that's being ma'ashim somebody for a big chet... You murdered somebody, yeah? And by the way, you double parked in front of the courthouse. It's irrelevant, right? The main nekudah is the chet, the chamur, the chomer hachet, the strict thing that he did. If he's giving mussar for the meraglim, why does he have to mention Barvuvya, Vatikrvun, that you came in a tumul? What's it negeya? Reb Yitzchak Levi Volozhin, the way he speaks out the kashya is so eloquently. He says, Mah ra? Why did Moshe Rabbeinu find it the proper forum to give them mussar al davar kal, it's a study, it's a side point, when he's discussing with them the main problem that they did, the meraglim. The meraglim was bechilah doyvis. You know what the meraglim, the chet, the destruction, the consequence. So why bring up this side? It's almost irrelevant in the real story. So in Kelm, they had a mahalach, and Chassidus also speaks a lot about this inyan. Kelm? Yeah, the Alter from Kelm. Shh. That irvuvya. Irvuvya means fatumult. When a person is not miyushav, he's not b'daas, he's not in the frame of mind, the worst aveiros could come. Mevulbal. Irvuvya is a sign of mevulbal. And when a person is mevulbal, you know, a person can't learn, he can't daven, and he could do the worst aveiros. The meraglim, Moshe Rabbeinu was saying, you know where it started? Arvuvya. The fact that the olam was mevulbal, that the olam was in an inyan shelo miyushav, shelo bedaas, lo miyushav bedaato. Therefore, it came the inyan of the meraglim. I've told you many times that baalei mussar speak that if you want to know where a bochur is holding in Torah and in yiras Shamayim, check his drawers. They say over that there was a father who came to see how his son's doing. So the Alter from Novardok or from Kelm, one of the baalei mussar, says, Come with me. Let's look. He brings him to his room, and then he brings him over to the drawer. He opens up the drawer and he sees that it was mesudar, it was everything. He's okay. He's doing well. Seder in the machshavah, in the mind, means he's doing what he has to be doing. When it's arvuvya, when a person is not miyushav, he could do the worst aveiros. So therefore...

Moshe Rabbeinu felt important to stress. Moshe Rabbeinu felt that it was important to bring out that there was an ervuvia that brought about meraglim, because that was the shoresh of the meraglim, ervuvia. Eino miyushiv. And the Chassidus, there's a lot of Torah about this. The first thing is daas. They have binah, vahaskel, chochmah, binah, vadaas. Daas. A person has to be in the right frame of mind, because if not, he's eino miyushiv. And eino miyushiv means eino min hayishuv. He could do who knows what. Reb Yitzel of Volozhin himself gives a different teretz, and he says that the reason why Moshe Rabbeinu stressed the vatikrav alai kulchem, that it was b'arvuvia, because otherwise Klal Yisroel could come and say, What are you screaming at us? We didn't do the meraglim. The meraglim did the meraglim. I did the meraglim? What did I do? I sent meraglim. I figured they're ehrlicha people. They came back. They did what they did. So why are you blaming us? What did we do? And the teretz is, b'irvuvia. Shh. The way you came, b'irvuvia, you should have realized that nothing good is going to come out of it. Why? The lack of derech eretz, the younger push, this is not healthy. There's something wrong. And if there's something wrong, nothing good could come from it. To give you an example, they say over in Brisk that Reb Chaim Brisker was once attending as a rosh yeshiva of a big asifas rabbanim, and they were discussing different things. And one person came to the meeting who was really not welcome. Shh, he was not welcome at the meeting because he was a troublemaker. So Reb Chaim said, We must remove this person from the meeting because the meeting can't continue with him. The person left. Then they wanted to continue the meeting. Reb Chaim said, We have to stop the whole meeting. Why? Anything for Yiddishkeit, in order for it to have success, it had to be started on the right foot. If it means to embarrass another Jew, which maybe we had to do, but that's what happened, that's the wrong foot. And something that starts on the wrong foot cannot be noisei peiros, can't be anything good that comes out from it. This is more or less what Reb Yitzel of Volozhin is saying. You came by Volozhin, the youngers were pushing the elders, there was no derech eretz. You should understand that nothing good came from it, so don't come and plead now, you know, insanity, so to speak. I didn't know, you know, plead the Fifth. Why, what do I know? You should have known. You should have realized that the meraglim was no good from the beginning. It started on the wrong foot. It started with ketanim mevazim es hagdolim, ketanim doichfim es hagdolim. It's wrong. When there's lack of derech eretz, when there's no derech eretz, nothing good can come from it. Azei zogt Reb Yitzel l'Mivolozhin. Reb Yankif. Zeche tzaddik livrachah, emes, Yaakov has a different pshat. And he says, it's not the ervuvia like we understood, that they became completely disoriented, right, with bilbul, panic. The ervuvia was a sign of panic. Panic means you don't have emunah. You know when someone panics, when he doesn't feel that the Eibishter is protecting, you start to panic. What do I do? I lose myself. So it wasn't the loss of themselves, like in Kelem they say, that ervuvia. It was the lack of emunah that you showed by coming b'ervuvia. And when there's a lack of emunah, and when there's a lack of emunah, yeah, mimeila nothing will come from it. A person makes decisions based on a lack of emunah, he's making the wrong decisions. It's a lesson in life, rabosai. The lesson from Alter from Kelem is a tremendous lesson, that if a person is bilbul, he goes through life, his daily activity, some people can have rough nisyonos. You have to be yoshev. A person should always be in the right frame of mind, because if not, big mistakes come. The second lesson.

Lesson is that from Rabbi Yitzchala, that wherever there's a lack of derech eretz, for example, how many times in a shul or in a yeshiva, right, we want to do something, we want to put something that it should be l'toivas hatzibur. Make sure you're not hurting anybody in the process, because if it is, you never know, it might not work out because of it. Nothing good ever came from a lack of derech eretz or bein adam l'chaveiro, hurting somebody. And the lesson of Rabbi Yankiv is also great, and that is that when a person goes through life and he finds himself in a situation where he lacks the proper emunah, he can make big mistakes in business and in life and in family. Emunah is the foundation that anyone who makes decisions must be founded and grounded on the yesod of emunah. If not, look what Miraglim brought. The alter from Slabodka said a different pshat. Matekina v'lai kolchem, lack of derech eretz. The lack of derech eretz was the shoresh for the direct miraglim, not the pshat that you should have known from the lack of derech eretz that the miraglim will be a problem. Fakert, the lack of derech eretz caused the miraglim. The fact that the elders were pushed aside by the youngsters, and I want to point this out, rabosai, you know there's two ways to push an elder aside. It can be a physical. You're waiting on line, you push, right? Huh? You push. That's a physical pushing away. Maybe they pushed away the elders physically. Instead of waiting on line, seder. You know, they say over — I heard this from my zeide; it's printed in a few of the sefarim — that the Alter of Slabodka, of course, was very makpid on the inyan of derech eretz and kavod habriyos. That was the theme of the mussar of Slabodka, that when it say היה שמוז, the bachurim would come and bring the chairs close up to the table where the Alter was giving the shmues. I guess it was about to hear better; it was to get closer. The Alter sits down and the oilam starts pushing the chairs, and one guy pushed another guy a little bit to squeeze his way in. The Alter said, No shmues. Over. He picked himself up and he left. You push another guy? Where's your kavod habriyos? Where's your kavod habriyos? What's wrong with you? You hear? So could be דוחין means that they literally pushed them away. They pushed, they shoved. Or דוחין might mean that they didn't pay attention to the elders. Maybe the elders were saying, Listen, let's go slowly, let's do it like this. No, דוחין with the hand. What's he talking about? It's another way of being דוחין. You can be physically דוחין, or you can be דוחין by ignoring the זקנים, ignoring the זקנים. The meraglim — and this is what I believe is what the Alter means. I'd like to explain what the Alter means. You know, the meraglim themselves... Third, in this inyan, the Rabbeinu Shlelam told them it's good. Moshe Rabbeinu tells them it's good. Compared to Moshe Rabbeinu, who are you? What are you? You're a cotton compared to the zekeinim, right? The lack of bittul, the lack of subordination, the lack of derech eretz for the zekeinim is whole gufa. What brought about the meraglim? If there was any derech eretz, right? And that's really what it says in the pasuk. Tovah ha'aretz. The Ribono Shel Olam said it's good, so what do you say? And the answer is, you know better. You know better, you see? You know what an apikores, rabosai? An apikores means that you don't believe in Hashem. Oh, no, no. An apikores could start when you know better. Moshe Rabbeinu, you hear? Instead of saying whatever Moshe Rabbeinu does or whatever he did, no. You know, probably you know better. You understand better. That's called, rabosai, also apikorsus, you see? When the Ribono Shel Olam tells you, Tovah ha'aretz me'od me'od, and Moshe Rabbeinu tells you, Tovah ha'aretz me'od, and he sends you meraglim, yeah? I've told you in the shmues on the meraglim that the inyan of the meraglim was they lacked anavah, they lacked humility.

About this, right? Eretz Yisroel is called Eretz Canaan, hachna. We spoke from Chassidus sheTorah that when you don't have the proper hachna, then you see it the way you want to see it. You know where the shorashim, you know where the subtle beginnings of that start? When ketanim puskimim. That's how it starts. When the ketanim puskimim, the next step is meraglim, the next step is eicha es levadi, moshe Rabbeinu. Where did I get all this from? I'll tell you right now. There's a Gemara in Shabbos, daf kuf yud tes, that one of the reasons for the churban is shehayu mashvim katan kegadol. They made a shivui, a katan and a gadol. The meforshim ponder what it means, and pashut pshat, according to most meforshim, means the katan was called the gadol and the gadol was called the katan. He says that, and this guy... When you break down in society, yedoylim and ketanim, and that barrier gets broken down, the next step is there's no daas Torah, there's no kavod chachamim. Mimeila, the next step is vatikinu alai kulchem bervuvya, ketanim are pushing the zekeinim away. And guess what happens? Meraglim happens. And guess what happens? Eicha. That's what happens. There's a meyridige Kli Yakar. The Kli Yakar says—you hear, Rabosai, the Kli Yakar says—that if you look at Rashi, Rashi didn't say that this was no good. Rashi says that Matan Torah... That was good. So it would seem Torah was good. This is no good, and Rashi is trying to show you the contrast. The Kli Yakar says, fakert, the contrast is exactly what's no good. You know, sometimes people have derech eretz when it's not really important to them. For example, you don't care if that guy sits in your seat. You don't care. So you're very nice. You come, sit down. You don't really care. Deep down, it doesn't make a difference to you. Let's see what happens when it's something that does make a difference to you. Then all the derech eretz goes out the window, right? They had derech eretz when it came to matan Torah, says the Kli Yakar. So someone would come and say, Well, they have derech eretz. Let's see what happens by the meraglim, where they wanted something. There there was no derech eretz. So it means there's really no derech eretz. But what is, is by matan Torah you didn't care that much. Could you imagine an aliyah? You know, when you see sometimes in certain shuls, they'll kill for an aliyah. And in certain shuls they couldn't care less. They couldn't care less. Give the guy twenty aliyahs, they don't care. So you come and say, Very nice that they're such kind people, look how they don't care. And let's see if you take away ten dollars from them, what happens. Well, there they care. So it's not the fact that they're just very kind and giving. It's that the aliyah doesn't mean much to them. The Kli Yakar says that sometimes derech eretz is a sign that you don't really care so much. You know, it's interesting. One of the things that the Churban was based on, shloi barchu baTorah techilah. The Gemara tells us, in Nedarim, in Bava Metzia, pei hei, pei aleph, pei hei, in some hederin, in Bava Metzia, in Nedarim, and the Rishonim, the Ran brings from Rabbeinu Yonah, that Torah wasn't chashuv by them. They weren't machshiv Torah. So it's interesting, right? Tell me, did they treat their friends properly? No, shtei tapchos, there was sinas chinam. Were they machshiv Torah? No, because if they were machshiv Torah, they would have made birchos haTorah. Isn't it interesting that here Rashi is telling us that when it came to Torah, there was derech eretz, because there was no real kavod for the Torah. They didn't really care that much. And when it came to what they wanted for themselves, here, take the Midrash says, the Zohar tells us, that you know why they did this whole thing? They were afraid they were going to lose their job. Could you imagine giving up all of Klal Yisroel just for the sake of keeping your job? Could you imagine stepping over everybody just to keep your...

Job. You understand what? They were ready to sell Klal Yisroel. And again, I don't know how to say it because we're, you know, they're much bigger people than we'll ever be, and it's very hard to talk about chataim of the people in the Torah, kedoshim. But that's what the Zohar tells us, that their kavanah was they were afraid they were going to lose their job. It's mefurash Zohar, it's mefurash Medrash and Chazal. So what? They didn't understand the consequence that they're selling Klal Yisroel for that. They didn't understand what they were doing. See a tremendous lesson. The middos of the person is the shoresh v'gorim to all the big aveiros that cause churban. They weren't machshiv Torah. They were learning. They weren't doing aveiros. So what was lacking? Something on the inside. They weren't mechabed. There was sinas chinam, yeah? You think there was mamash outright sinas chinam? I don't know. It doesn't say that they had tremendous sinas chinam, what they did bad to their friends. Maybe if we could search a Chazal. But we have a Chazal that they were meshaveh katan kegadol. B'shaveh katan kegadol, rabosai, is just a middos thing. It's just lack of derech eretz. Churban begins with lack of middos, which brings about afterwards big aveiros, which bring about churban habayis. And this, rabosai, is what Moshe Rabbeinu was already telling them, Eichah. I saw this. Where did I see this? Take a look how you treated. Look how you were fighting. The fighting in the midbar, we knew, is going to result with eicha, eicha, eicha, that there's going to be eicha. The last thing, rabosai, is quite obvious. A person must analyze where the middos went wrong, because once you know where the middos went wrong, then we could talk about what the churban for today is. Because, like I tell you from the Rambam, we must understand how our maasim are the same as the maasim of yesteryear. You know, externally we look good. We look very good. We learn and we daven, and we're frum maybe more than they were hundreds of years ago, many much more, in many ways. The zehirus in the dinim, in the dikduk halacha, I mean, it's unbelievable if you think about it. Where, what generation do we have such a dikduk halacha? So what happened? And the answer is undetected. Bein middos min ha'shoresh. Certain things are missing min ha'shoresh. You could try to cover it up. Our mechav doros, the Rishonim say that no one was able to figure it out. You see from the Gemara: shalu chachamim, shalu neviim. No one could figure it out. Why? It was deep. It was something very deep. If you look, part of the haftorah for Tisha B'Av in the morning. is amei ha'aretz, but before we get to amei ha'aretz, there's a whole introduction how limdu leshonam cheitz, mirmah. Falsity. The tongue was false. What does that mean? You couldn't figure it out. They talked to each other in a way that everybody was friendly, but it says clearly it was each person didn't trust the other person. It was hidden. It was something, detecting that inside was not right. On the outside it looked very good. That's a befurush. It's mamash befurush. If you bring me, you know what, bring me any siddur that has the haftorah. Bring me the haftorah from Tishah B'Av. I want to show you the pesukim. Bring me the haftorah. You have maybe an ArtScroll siddur, huh? No, you need haftorah for Tishah B'Av morning. You're not gonna have it. I don't know if it's in there. I checked once. Let me see if they have it again. Shavuos, Chol Hamoed, Esther. I don't know if it's in there. Shabbos Hagadol, Shekalim. You're not gonna have it. Pesach, Tishah B'Av. Oh, here it is. Okay, you have it. Okay, right here.

Okay, ready? Here. Here. It says clearly, Vayadrichus leshonam kashtam sheker, v'lo le'emunah gavru ba'aretz. You hear? Ish merei'eihu yishameru, v'chol ach al tivtachu, ki chol ach akov yaakov, v'chol rea rachil yalech. There was a lack of trust between person to person. V'ish berei'eihu haseilu, v'emes lo yedaberu. You see? They didn't speak the truth. You talk to a guy, he was your best friend, behind his back. Here. Limdu leshonam daber sheker. The whole, the whole, the whole of Torah is this, here. Shivtecha b'sechech mirmah, b'mirmah meanu daas Osi, ne'um Hashem. Says the Ribono Shel Olam, because of this mirmah, they didn't know Me either. You know what the Navi is trying to say? To detect the bad middah of no one was able to have trust. That caused me, meanu daas Osi. V'chein ka'amar Hashem Tzvakos, hini tzorfam u'bechantim. I'm going to have to clean them. Bechantim, I'm going to have to purify them. Ki eich esh bnei bas ami, chet shachat leshonam, mirmah diberu. He says clearly, b'fiv shalom es re'eihu yedaber. He spoke very peaceful about his friend. U'vikirbo yasim arbo. It's open in the pesukim. The pesukim are considered, halela lo yafku b'Hashem. The Ribono Shel Olam says, you know... There was a churban habayis, but where was the shoresh of it? There was something dishonest. And klapi chutz, you couldn't tell anything. The character, the way they spoke outwardly, beautiful, yeah. Befiv shalomes re'eihu yedaber. Best friends. אבל inside, yeah. So after, Rabbeinu Shlolam, that inside means you don't have kavod haTorah either. Notice that the next thing is what? Al mavd haaretz. Why? Because al ozvam es Torasi asher nasati lifneihem. Kavod haTorah. You see? The shoresh of the middah of kavod, respecting a friend, respecting a rebbe. Eicha, you didn't respect the rebbe. You talked about Ben Amram. Atika d'vai kulchem, you didn't respect the elders. What does that bring? Raglim churban. There's a breakdown in kavod, kavod harabim, kavod hatzibur, kavod chaveirim, kavod rabbeim. The next step is? Kavod Hashem. That's what happens. See, Rabosai, it's mefurash, mamash mefurash. I can't tell you how the Navi, the Tanach is clear, it's clear. Me'anu da'asaisi. That's what happened. And the pasuk doesn't stop with the way they spoke and that, but inside it was no good. The friend, the ahavah, the sinas chinam, the hirshe cut and gedol, lack of derech eretz, mimeila it led to churban habayis. Rabosai, this we have to work on, very important in these days. Baruch Hashem, we're learning, we're davening, we're doing good, more or less. I mean, avada, we always need chizuk in these inyanim. But we have to be mevaker. A person has to test and be me'ayein: where is he really holding? Does he really respect people? Does he really respect talmidei chachamim? Does he really respect Torah? Inwardly is one thing, and outwardly is a whole different thing. This is what the Rabbeinu Shlom says, alma d'ha'almas. Shh. Okay, what we're going to do is stop now, and then we'll do Tisha B'Av. We'll do separately. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.