Parashas Toldos, Part 3: Preserving Our Sensitivity to Hashem’s World

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. You know, the Rambam says, how does a person come to ahavas Hashem? Either you love Hashem or you don't love Hashem. It's love, it's a feeling. How do you love Hashem? The Rambam asks this for a question. Says the Rambam that when you look at the briyah, the world around you, Hashem's great creation, the wisdom behind the creation, the greatness behind the creation, automatically you'll start loving HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and you'll start believing in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, emunah, ahavah, Hashem's greatness. Yeah? Rambam, famous Rambam. Tell me, does it really work? I know a lot of people wake up every morning and they see a whole world and it doesn't affect them whatsoever. I always asked Rosh Yeshivas and Gedolim, why don't in the yeshivas they take us for nature walks? They should take us. I remember when I was in Camp Agudah, my Rebbe, Reb Belsky, zecher tzaddik livracha, used to take us for nature walks, and we talked about nature. It's a Rambam. Rambam says that that's how you come to ahavas Hashem, to look at the nature. So why don't we have sidrei yeshiva every day we should go, take off a half an hour, instead of learning mussar, or with mussar. You want to know something? Not instead, plus mussar. It's good to learn mussar also. Let's go for a nature walk, and let's see the briyah, and we'll come to what? Emunah and ahavah of Hashem. What happened? And you know what the answer that I was given? Today's times, you don't see it anymore. We don't get the lesson, and we don't pick up the feelings of love of Hashem through seeing nature anymore. We don't get it. But theoretically, we should. We should be able to pick it up. A friend of mine once told me that his father was once walking in a summer in the mountains, in the Catskills. He was walking with Rav Moshe Shiskal, zecher tzaddik livrachah. Rav Moshe Shiskal was the son-in-law of Rav Moshe Feinstein, and he passed away young. Rav Moshe mourned him terribly. The loss of Rav Moshe was very, very painful to Rav Moshe Feinstein, and Rav Moshe used to say that he would have been the next gadol hador, that he was a giant. So my friend's father was walking with him, strolling, and they were talking and learning, and without paying attention, he was holding a branch, and he broke the branch. You know, some people, they fiddle, they fiddle with a branch, and then, you know, they play with it and they break the branch. Rav Moshe Shiskal turned to him—the person's name is Rav Daniel—Rav Daniel, what are you doing? It's alive. It's a lebedige zach. It's alive. It's Hashem's creation. It's a twig. And at first he was like, What? It's a twig. What are you talking about? And he said, ... it's the Ribono Shel Olam's lebedike. It's Ribono Shel Olam's live tree. What are you doing? I learned a tremendous lesson. People who are sensitive, people who are intelligent, they see life in everything around them, and therefore they see Hashem in everything around them. It's beautiful. It's such a beautiful lesson. Listen to the lesson. We can walk around and see trees, and we can see an entire world. It doesn't affect us whatsoever. It doesn't do anything to us. Why? What happened? We become desensitized, desensitized, desensitized. And therefore when we see beauty, and when we see middos, and when we see ruchniyus, and when we see Gan Eden, we don't see anything. We don't see it. We don't feel it. To be able to be pure, pure, pure, pure, pure. I want to tell you something interesting.

From a chashuv Yid, Rabbi Weinhaus. He was a talmid of the Mir in Europe, and he said that he was once standing as a person walked over to Rabbi Yerucham, and he overheard the following conversation. He went over to Rabbi Yerucham, this person, and he asked that they say over that Rabbi Yisroel Salanter was once walking together with somebody, and they saw sunrise. They saw the sunrise. I guess they were walking before sunrise, and they decided, you know what, let's stop and let's see sunrise. Sunrise came. Rabbi Yisroel saw it. He was so moved, overwhelmed with emotion, that he began to dance, and he made the bracha, Hanoisen lasechvi vinah lehavchin bein yom uvein laylah. He was moved. He was elevated. He was nitorer, the sun. And it rises every morning. By this point, he must have seen the sun come and go quite a while, yet he was moved and elevated. So the person asks Rabbi Yerucham, and I heard it from the person that was standing there and overheard the conversation, We're not so far off in years from Rabbi Yisroel Salanter. Rabbi Yisroel Salanter just lived a few years ago. How come he was moved to dance when he saw the sun, and we're not even anything... Doesn't mean anything to us. We wake up in the morning. That's how we make the bracha. And we look at our clocks and our watches. We have to go, we have to... we have appointments, appointments, appointments, appointments. Today it's not even a watch. In my case, I'm looking at my watch. I'm old-fashioned. Here today it's the phone. Appointments, appointments. What happened? Rabbi Yerucham answered him the following. On the spot, Rabbi Yerucham responded and he said, You know why we're not so moved, we're not emotionally נסער when we see the sun? Because the sun doesn't rise just for me, for us. It's for everyone. So what? For everyone, big deal. Just to give you a mashal, this Yid gave me an example. A guy gets a brand new car. If he's the only guy in the block that has the car, it's a big thing, his car. But if everyone has the same car, no big deal. אילו היה הנאה רק לו. If the sun was only an enjoyment that he had, special rights to the sun. What do you call special? VIP, what do you call it? VIP to the sun. If he was a VIP, you ever see, you go on the same plane, right? But if you're VIP, VIP, they give you an extra peanut. What do they give you there already? You can buy your drink. Therefore what? But I'm VIP and you're not VIP. Then it's exciting. You think, who knows who you are because you're VIP, because you paid for first-class tickets. So what? You paid for it. What's the difference? At least I can walk around. Okay, yeah? Good. So the sun rises for everyone. So I don't enjoy it. Yeah, I don't enjoy it that much. Big deal. And why did Rabbi Yisrael Salanter dance? Because it wasn't only for him; it was for everyone. And that's what excited him. I saw once a letter that my grandfather wrote. The person was offering him a specific thing which was very good for my grandfather, and my grandfather turned it down. He says, I don't want it. Kashe li lehanot bedavar shekol hahanaah hi rak sheli. It's very difficult for me to enjoy something that the only one that's enjoying from it is me. You know what that is? That's not blind. That's sensitive. That has feelings, healthy emotions and healthy feelings. When you're not healthy, the whole hanaah is that I have and the other guy doesn't have. That's what gives you enjoyment.

The more we see, and the more garbage from the svivah around us, we become mushpa, that we become filtered. We become completely pushed on us, all this, all. You know what that does for us? That not only we don't have healthy feelings and have healthy responses, healthy emotions; chas v'shalom, we have sick emotions, and we think we're normal, we think we're healthy. Instead of getting moved by spiritual, by chesed and kindness, we’re so— and this is because the media throws at us. It throws at us all the different tashkafot ra'ot and midot ra'ot. We're being flooded with misinformation and bad chinuch and bad midot influencing us. This is, mera'ot. Best thing is to shut it all down. Look inward. What's pure? What's good? What's real? I'll tell you a beautiful story. I heard from a chashuv person, Harav Levenberg. His son is a good friend of mine, a talmid chacham muflag that wrote many, many sefarim. Imrei Chein, a person sits in a lakewood yeshiva, locked away from the whole world, al haTorah v'al ha'avodah, by his Gemara. He knows nothing from the outside world. Good friend of mine, Rabbi Yehuda Levenberg. His father told me the following story. His father told me that his grandfather, who was a big rav in Europe... Was one sitting at a table and the Chafetz Chaim was sitting next to him. And on the table there was a sefer. There was a sefer. The sefer was written by a person who was not such a big talmid chacham. And in the sefer he wrote something which was wrong. It was silly. It was a silly thing to write. The grandfather of Rabbi Levenberg looked at it, and he started to, like, smirk and, man, ooh, it's bad. What kind of silly thing did this person write? So he turns to the Chafetz Chaim and he says, Chafetz Chaim, look, look what the guy wrote. Seems like an innocent, such a bad thing. It's a sefer on the table, something that the guy wrote. And the way Rabbi Levenberg explained, it's not even lashon hara. Is it lashon hara? If the guy wrote it in a book, he wants you to read it. He wrote it in a book that you should read it, right? So he was giving it to the Chafetz Chaim to read. Chafetz Chaim didn't even look in the direction. You get to see this on the table. You don't get to see, so I have to show, pick it up a little bit. The book was on the table, you see? I'm conscious to the audience around me. The book was on the table, and he pushed it away without looking. He pushed it away without looking. He didn't want to see. I don't want to see. So Rabbi Levenberg tells this to the Chafetz Chaim. He tells the Chafetz Chaim, but it's not lashon hara. I mean, it's written in a book. It was meant to read. Everyone could read. It's not lashon hara. Something that's open to the public to read can't be lashon hara. If I give you a newspaper to read, why it's lashon hara? You know what the Chofetz Chaim answered? You're right. In halacha, it's not an issur. But who needs it? Why do I have to know that this person wrote something stupid? What do I need it for? Better if I don't know it. The purity, the beauty of it. Not everything, because it's mutar, is something that's healthy to do. A healthy person doesn't see bad middos, doesn't see evil, he doesn't see mistakes. You don't have to look there. You look positive. You look nice about things and people, sefarim and mechabrei sefarim. Don't need to look negative. A healthy person looks positive and kind. You should be blind to negativity, blind to bad, and blind to movies, and blind to the dirt that they're throwing at us on a constant basis. That you need to be blind to. That's very important for kedusha. And if you have that, that you cut it all out, and you train yourself to only see...

You'll hear good things. You'll see in Hashem's world beautiful things. You'll see Hashem every step of the way. You'll see a world of kindness. You'll see fruits and herbs, like he calls, of chesed and emes. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.