Vayishlach: Taryag Mitzvos Shamarti—Keeping Mitzvos with Good Middos, Not Misplaced Tzidkus

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Yaakov Avinu sends shluchim, messengers, to Esav his brother with a specific message. Vayetzav osam leimor. This is the way he commanded them, he instructed them to tell Esav: Ko amar avdecha Yaakov, im Lavan garti, va'echar ad atah. I lived with Lavan, and I stayed there, I spent my time over there, vayehi li shor vachamor, tzon, eved veshifchah, va'eshlach l'hagid la'adoni limtzo chen b'einecha. Why is it relevant to Esav that Yaakov is in the house of Lavan, im Lavan garti, so what? In Yiddish you have an expression, a gesheft. How does it concern Esav at the least that he's coming from the house of Lavan? So Rashi explains, im Lavan garti, garti begematria taryag, famous Chazal, that garti, taryag, he was telling him, I kept the taryag mitzvos. Im Lavan harasha garti, the taryag mitzvos shamarti, v'lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im, I didn't learn from his bad ways. L'choira, it's a redundant statement. If you say, im Lavan garti... Tayag mitzvos shamarti. So then, of course, it means lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im. What's the vavadim, lo v'garti? V'tayag mitzvos shamarti. I kept the mitzvos, and therefore you should be afraid of me, or whatnot, whatever the reason, whatever the cheshbon is in the tayag mitzvos shamarti. But you don't have to repeat, v'lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im. Why does he have to emphasize that? Obviously that's what he means to say, and it's pretty self-understanding from the words, Tayag mitzvos shamarti. So there is a teretz that's brought down in sefarim. I think Rav Ruderman, zecher tzaddik livracha, the Baltimore Rosh Yeshiva, said a shmues on this topic with the following pshat. We all know, Kedoshim tihyu. The pasuk tells us that we should be kedoshim. The Ramban explains that what is the chiddush, the command of Kedoshim tihyu? Shelo tihyu naval birshus haTorah. A person technically can keep all the mitzvos, yet be a naval. He can find loopholes in the halacha to behave almost like a naval, a gangster. Shelo tihyeh naval. Bershus haTorah. Kedusha means you have to elevate yourself. It's not enough just to keep the letter of the law, but it has to be with the letter of the law and the kiyum hamitzvos, a person should live a life of spirituality, kedusha, not, I keep the mitzvos and I'm a novel. So maybe that's what Yaakov Avinu is saying: Tayag mitzvos shamarti, v'lo lamadti. I didn't learn mima'asav hara'im. Lavan was a novel. Lavan was a person who was, no, was a—he was a gangster. He was a novel, a lowlife. It's interesting, Lavan, novel, very much the same letters. Lamed, beis, nun. Nun, beis, lamed is novel. Lavan, novel. V'lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im. I would like to say another pshat over years of seeing, experiencing, taking in life situations, I started to see that there is such a phenomenon that a person could keep the mitzvos.

And because he keeps the mitzvahs, he can be a novel. Because he keeps the mitzvahs, he's doing maasim raim. You know, mitzvahs have to be kept in a way where it's deracheha darchei noam. Tosis tells us that a nida doesn't fall to yibum, doesn't fall. How do we know this? So Tosis says because at the time she's a nida, you can't be with her. Then let her fall later on. That's already impossible because that's against the klal of deracheha darchei noam. The Torah's ways of sweetness. Torah is pleasant. Deracheha darchei noam. So Tosis understood, without a mekor, there's no Gemara, there's no Rishon, there's no text, there's no Chazal that is teaching us this yesod, that deracheha darchei noam is a patur in Hilchos Yibum. Yet, yet, Tosis understood it must be that way. It must be that when the Torah says to fall to yibum, it has to fall under the guidelines of deracheha darchei noam. An open Tosis. You know, shmiras hamitzvahs sometimes pushes a person to behave in manners which are not deracheha darchei noam. So maybe Rashi is saying, Tayag mitzvos shamarti. Sometimes a person could keep the mitzvahs by hurting other people. It's a mitzvah, it's a mitzvah. Now, v'lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im, in the way I kept the mitzvahs. The first pshat we're saying is that there could be two things: a person could keep all the mitzvahs, yet live a lifestyle which is naval, a lifestyle which is prichus, and the Torah wants that you should taka have both: the kiyum of the mitzvahs and kedoshim tihyu. And so Yaakov is saying two things: I kept the mitzvahs, and I also was, v'lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im, kedoshim tihyu. But the way I understand pshat maybe is, I kept the shmirah, the shmirah of the mitzvahs, in a way that it was v'lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im with bad midos. Sometimes a person keeps mitzvahs in a way that there's bad midos involved, and sometimes it's even worse. It's the fact that he has these bad midos that he hides himself in the kiyum of shmiras ha-mitzvahs. This becomes his pass to do what he does. Yeah, why do I have to do this? It's a mitzvah, without realizing that the shoresh, the source of your shmiras ha-mitzvahs is actually bad midos. It's ma'asim ra'im. Taryag mitzvos shamarti. I'm exposed to Lavan. Lavan also thinks he's doing everything right. Lavan's convinced. He's right. Yeah, but is he really right? It's a gangster. It's bad midos. Yeah, but I'm right, I'm right. So he was behaving malicious, evil, ra to Yaakov Avinu, believing that, zeh dafka minhag, this is the way we have to do it. And that could rub off, says Yaakov. It could have rubbed off on me. No, it didn't. Tayag mitzvos shamarti. In a way. But it was lo olamati; my midos were intact. Give me an example, rabosai. Rav Shalom Schwadron, zecher tzaddik livracha, used to have a shmues. The shmues was, Ani ra'iti — I saw Haman read Parshas Zachor. He saw. He himself says, I saw it. I saw Haman reading Parshas Zachor. We had to see Haman reading Parshas Zachor. He says he was once in a shul, and about Korah didn't show up, and it was Parshas Zachor, it was the week that we read Parshas Zachor, he didn't show up. Some kind of a — like something happened, an ones, some kind of...

This happened, and he didn't show up. So there was a kid, a bar mitzvah bochur. He says, You know what? I think I can get through the parsha. I'll be able to do it. So he got up there, and with difficulty—it wasn't easy, you know, he wasn't prepared—he got through the parsha with a little help from the people on the side. He did it. Then it came to Parshas Zachor, so he wanted to read Parshas Zachor. This is a very interesting halachic question. Could a bar mitzvah boy be motzi mitzvos d'oraisa when you need the mitzvah d'oraisa? Why? We don't really know if he's a gadol. We don't know. Why? You're right, his ears—he's 13, but he doesn't have simanim. How do you know if he has the signs, the two hairs, the signs that he's a gadol? So there's something called chazakah. We take on he probably has it. Chazakah works maybe for derabbanan. Who says it works when you need a mitzvah d'oraisa? You'll need a gadol for the mitzvah d'oraisa. It's not so simple that you could just say, Well, he's probably a gadol. How do you know? Who said? So there's a Reb Akiva Eiger that says that we do not rely on chazakah d'rabbanan. Chazakah d'rabbanan, we don't rely on it where it's a d'oraisa, where he's being motzi you in a mitzvah d'oraisa. Zachor is d'oraisa. Krias haTorah all year is derabbanan, so that's fine. You can have a kid, a bar mitzvah boy, as soon as he gets bar mitzvah, he can read the parsha. But Parshas Zachor, d'oraisa. So there was somebody in the shul that made a whole terum. Yiddish, they call it a terum. A whole tumult. How could we have this bachur read Parshas Zachor? How do we know he's a gadol? Shh. How do we know he's a gadol? The people in the shul told this fellow, Listen, don't make such a tumult. The kid was nice enough to layn for us. You're going to be embarrassing him if you tell him to go down because he's not a gadol, because he's a child. Leave it alone. Let him read. People in the shul didn't know this. Kiveiger, to them it wasn't an issue. But they were sensitive to reality of what's in front of them. The kid is going to be told that he's not a gadol and he shouldn't read. It'd be embarrassing him. It's going to hurt him. This fellow made a whole thing, No! It's a de'oraisa. Huh? Huh? What did he do? He ran up to the bimah, pushed the kid out to the side, and he read it himself. Says Reb Shalom, Ani ra'iti es Haman korei Parshas Zachor. I saw Haman read Parshas Zachor. I see Amalek reading Parshas Zachor. It's a beautiful story. There's so much chochmah and daas Torah. You know, people could misbehave and hurt others over even a minhag, a custom, a custom. This is a de'oraisa. And what does Reb Shalom look at it? Reb Shalom is telling us he's on this guy. Could you imagine how many people do this when it comes to a minhag, a custom? There's a beautiful story from the Fridiker Rebbe, the father of the Skverer Rebbe that we know of today. He was a rav in a shul before Squaretown. Squaretown is after him. He was a rav in a shul, Skverer bis medrash. How many people davened there? Probably not too many. A choson came for a visit as a simcha. There was a simcha in the shul. So usually the Rebbe benches Rosh Chodesh. Rosh Chodesh, Birchas HaChodesh, the Rebbe does it. But this was a choson, a guest. They told the Rebbe, said he should do it. He should get up and read and give the Birchas HaChodesh, Rosh Chodesh benching. Ashkenaz has a minhag to say the molad. Molad means we announce when the new moon is going to be born. When do we do it? Before we say the— no, before they say what day it is. Rosh Chodesh will be so and so, right? So before we do that, the gabbai announces the molad is so and so. In Skver, they had a different custom. Instead of doing it before, they would do it after. Either after they're saying which day is Rosh Chodesh, or after Yachadsheihu, at the end of the Birchas HaChodesh, they would announce the molad is the choson.

Didn't know this, so the chazzan got up, and before he started saying when the devar Rosh Chodesh is, he waited. And he's looking and he's trying to figure out how come the gabbai isn't announcing when the molad is. The gabbai catches what's going on, so he looks at the Rebbe, What should I do? You know, in our custom in Skver is to do it afterwards. The chazzan, not knowing this, is waiting, and he's trying to understand why we're not saying it. So the Rebbe said, Say it. The Rebbe waved with his hand, You say the molad right now. They said the molad. The chazzan continued like they do in every other beis medrash all over the world. The gabbai comes over to the Rebbe after davening, and he says, Rebbe, I don't understand. It's our beis medrash. It's Skver. Why, I mean, why does he have the right, so to speak, to change our minhag? This is our minhag. This is our custom. We should stand firm on our customs. I mean, good, okay, he didn't know. Fine, so we'll tell him afterwards, By the way, we do it like this, and that's all. Skver Rebbe answered something which was—it's so much limud, so much lesson to be taken from it. He says, You're right. That's the minhag in Skver, to announce the molad the way we announce the molad after. That's right. It is our minhag. But the problem was here in this case, it was conflicting with a different minhag. What minhag was it conflicting with? He says, I have an interesting minhag that I don't hurt people. I'm not mevazeh people b'rabim, you know. V'ahavta l'reacha kamocha is also a minhag by me, you know. I have such a custom. So it was a question of this minhag of v'hafta l'reacha kamocha, or this minhag of announcing when the moled is, and I decided, you know what? The minhag of v'hafta l'reacha kamocha is more important. And so I tell you to say it before. The Rebbe's wisdom—he has a minhag, he has a custom. He's trying to say, you don't see the difference. Your minhag of hurting another Jew, to you it's all the same thing. It's insulting someone, embarrassing someone, it's all the same thing to you. He said, I have a funny minhag, he says, a funny minhag, a unique minhag he has, that he does not embarrass people in public. V'hafta l'reacha kamocha—it's a minhag by him. He has such a custom. This custom overrides this custom. Rabosai, shmiras hamitzvos needs to be viewed. It needs to be weighed through the scope of lo l'maati mima'asai b'royim. It shouldn't be that the ma'asim ra'im dictate to us the shmiras hamitzvos. I'll tell you a beautiful story. I saw it; it's brought in the sefer Halacha of Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. It's in the Halichos Shlomo, that there was someone who came to ask him a question on hilchos bedikas chametz. The question, Reb Shlomo Zalman answered him, and he told him whatever the halacha is, and then he tells him instructions: I want you, when you make bedikas chametz, I want you to do it very quickly. I want you to go and get it over with, one, two, three. Don't spend any time on bedikas chametz. The guy's looking, why? Because chametz, mitzvah, and I have to sit and go through all the corners. So Reb Shlomo Zalman told him, You're a yasom. Your father passed away recently. When you do bedikas chametz in your house, your mother's gonna remind herself constantly, Oh, my husband, your father, he went there, he did it like that. Oh, that's, I remember last year, that's how he did the bedikas chametz. To hurt, to hurt down money your mother, it's not worth it. Make bedikas chametz quickly and that's all. A baal yissur, a gadol. See? Ways things through darkei noam. The guy didn't even— it didn't even dawn on him such a topic. That was Reb Shlomo Zalman. That was on his mind. That was the first thing that he would thought about when this guy came to ask him a shaila. Everything he saw, he saw it through the prism, through the glasses of darkei noam. And this is what I think is the pshat: Tayag mitzvos shamarti, tayag mitzvos shamarti. You know, it's interesting that Yaakov Avinu gives so much respect to Esav.

The whole parsha, mamish, the bowing and the loving and the kissing and the unbelievable sar, kirois pnei Elokim, mamish like a face-to-face, unbelievable kavod, right? I mean, let's call a spade a spade. Esav was a rasha merusha. Esav was a gangster, top-of-the-line gangster. Couldn't get a bigger gangster than Esav. To his brother, not much of a great brother, wanted to kill him. He said clearly, I'm waiting for my father to die and I will kill him. So why is he bowing to him and respecting him and being so subordinate to him? So the pashut pshat is that this is not only Esav, but this is Esav in the future. This is a lesson of, bichlal Klal Yisrael and how they deal with the outside world of Esav, how they deal with the goyim. And so we learn many things on how we're supposed to behave, b'anavah, humble, subordinate. You're not supposed to go and try to win, so to speak, against Esav. You have to go b'hachna'ah. You have to go humble. And therefore we find that Yaakov Avinu humbles himself to Esav. And you look at the Ramban. The Ramban already says that this whole parsha should be learned in the context that this is for future as well. This is a textbook lesson of what it's going to be in the future, how Klal Yisrael will have Seir, Esav, the malchei Esav. The nations that come from Esav, how to deal with them. Ramban, he says, as a matter of fact, that when Tannaim would go to deal with Rome, they would first read Parshas Vayishlach, to take lessons. Ramban, Ramban in the beginning of the parsha, to take lessons. So the fact that Yaakov bows to Esav shouldn't be looked at, Yaakov at that time to Esav at that time. It's Yaakov is teaching us בכלל Esav. You think the fight of Yaakov and Esav was just then? It's eternal. It's about ruchniyusdike things. It's about yetzer hara against yetzer tov. And therefore, it's not a question of simple Yaakov being so subordinate to Esav, what's the pshat? That's a simple way of looking at things. I saw Reb Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, zichrono livracha, zich tzaddik livracha, says that there's a reason why Yaakov Avinu is very subordinate to Esav, while yet we see to Lavan he was not so much. When Lavan runs after him, he shows Lavan the— gives him the hand, goodbye. You know, I'm not so... Why to Lavan, says Reb Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, did he not show this hachnaah, but to Esav he goes out of his way to find favor by Esav? Answers Reb Shamshon Raphael Hirsch something unique, something very— takes a lot of hashkafah from an ish emes to write a thing like this. Lavan started off with Yaakov for no reason. It's a ketchepet fargornisht. There's nothing. There was nothing there. That should have caused Lavan to behave like that to Yaakov. But to Esav, Yaakov always felt a little bit guilty that maybe he took the brachos from him. He was the older brother. So that emes of Yaakov is a beautiful word, the emes of Yaakov, to know that maybe Esav has a point. You know, whenever we have a machlokes with people, do we ever stop and think for one second, maybe he has a point? Even if you're 99% right, is it possible that the other person is coming from somewhere, something's bothering him? There's something that I did that caused this? No, I'm 100% right, and therefore... Yaakov's emes forced him to say, you know, I have to treat Esav b'hachna, b'kavod. I got to appease him because at the end of the day, I had something to do with the fact that Esav hates me. I had something to do with it. We find that later on in the times of Mordechai, Mordechai HaTzadik, when he finds out the gezeirah that Haman was trying to destroy all the Jews, Vayeitzei el rechov ha'ir, vayiz'ak...

K'deilu mora. Chazal tell us, it's the exact same words that it says that Esav reacted when he lost the brachos from his father Yitzchok that Yaakov took it away. Vayiz'ak z'aka gedolah. It says in the Gemara Megillah that this is parallel to this, a tikkun, a tikkun for the fact that he caused Esav, vayiz'ak z'aka gedolah. We've already spoken many times in the past year, but Yaakov was right. Yes, it's true that Yaakov did it al pi his mother's tzivui. Yes, it's true that Yaakov heard it b'toras nevuah. Shema b'koli, Rivka said, listen to my voice. Kol, says Chazal, say it's nevuah, ruach hakodesh. So what did Yaakov do wrong? He listened. You think Yaakov wanted to do it? We spoke about many times that Yaakov actually was so hesitant, and he even tells his mother, I don't want to do it. What happens if my father curses me, he doesn't bench me? We spoke about this many times, that he went koifa, b'kfiya. He was forced, almost like you take a person by gun and push him to do something. And it's the Eibishter told him to do it. Kol, ruach hakodesh, it's his mother, kibud av va'eim. And yet, vayiz'ak z'aka gedolah, there was payment. There was payback for this. Payback. What's the pshat? So we spoke many times that even when you're 100% right, when you're 100% right, l'maaseh when you hurt somebody, you need a tikkun. You need a tikkun. Even if you're 100% right. L'maaseh, you cause someone pain, somewhere this is going to need tikkun. So the Vayizak z'aka gedolah u'marah that happened through Yaakov Avinu, even though it was 100% right, needed tikkun years later in the time of Mordechai and Esther, Vayizak z'aka gedolah u'marah. With the words of Reb Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, maybe we could say, 100% right doesn't always mean 100% right. It can mean 99.9% right, and if there's 1%, the fact is you caused somebody. It's through you. That itself already means a quarter of a percent, a fraction of a percent. You need tikkun. A fraction of a percent, the other person has something, has a claim. It's never black and white. We like to look at things black and white. I'm right, he's wrong. How about if you're right and he has something that he's right about? Or even maybe the way we're learning over here, you're 100% right minus a fraction. Torahs emes, Titein emes l'Yaakov teaches us in this parsha, address that point, and therefore find favor in the eyes of the other person. Try to appease him. Try to appease him. Limtzo chein. Lavan is not trying to find chein, and you know why? Lavan, he was 100 plus, plus a fraction and one right. He wasn't 99.9.9% right. He was 100.9999% right. There was no question. He did nothing to bring on Lavan's vicious behavior towards him. And so, he doesn't find the need to appease Lavan. Esav, there is a fraction of a taina there. There's something there. And so, he finds the need, limtzo chein b'einei ha'doini. I would say, rabosai, a third pshat. Esav, fort a bruder. Fort, still l'maaseh, his brother. Lavan, okay. Lavan's a schwer. He's only a schwer. Let's use those words. He's only his father-in-law. Only. Okay. Esav, Esav, Esav, achi. And that's why there's so much emphasis in the parsha: achi, achi, achi, achi. My brother, my brother. At the end of the day, no matter what he did to me, no matter what he's planning to do to me, no matter who he is, or not, or who he's not, he is still, still, still, still achi. And so, limtzo chein. I have to find a way on how to respect him. I have to.

Find the way and how to appease him, because he is my brother, my older brother. L'maaseh, he's my brother. At the end of the day, he's my brother. And with this hanhaga, you see Yaakov found the way into Eisav's heart. You know, we have times where brothers fight terribly. If one brother would turn to the other and say, Listen, you're my brother, and to try to find a way into that other brother's heart, it will work. Can't be worse than Eisav. I don't know any Jew who's considered worse than Eisav. And so, if to Eisav this is the hanhaga that Yaakov has, that we, the children, the Bnei Yisrael, should definitely have amongst our own brothers, real brothers, or even not mamish brothers, but chaveirim brothers, how much we should try to find chein, to find to respect, and taka with this to penetrate. That's the way to penetrate to the hardest of hearts, to the most difficult of most difficult of people. Limtzo chein b'einei ha'adoni. So it's not a question anymore, why does Yaakov do all this to Eisav? And the answer is, Pashut: achi, achi, achi. He's my brother. Achi, l'maaseh, he is my brother. And I'll prove this to you, that I believe that this is the real pshat in the parsha, the pshutai. The other teirutzim are taka emes, but this is the pshutai, the pashte pshat. At the end of the day, abrud is abrud. I'll show you where I got this from, where I feel it's muchach, raya berurah. Dina, mateizei Dina. Yaakov suffered terribly with Dinah. Suffered terribly with Dinah. Why did Yaakov suffer with Dinah? So Chazal already say it was a payment, a punishment, for taking Dinah, locking her into a box away from Esav, that Esav shouldn't marry her. The mefarshim all ask, what were the choices? He should have let Esav take Dinah. I mean, which father would allow this or should allow this? And if he would allow it, he'd be a rotzeach, he'd be a murderer. If Yaakov would let his daughter fall into the hands of Esav, he'd be a murderer. Chazal use the lashon that if someone takes a girl, his daughter, and gives it to an amoretz—forget Esav, an am haaretz—ki'ilu kaftlo lifnei ari, it's like putting in front of a lion. Imagine putting in front of a rasha merusha like Esav, rasha merusha like Esav. Tell me, Leah didn't daven not to fall in the hands of Esav, and she was considered a praiseworthy woman for this. The Eibishter saw what kind of a tzaddekes she is. Maybe she could change Esav, the same cheshbon, just like Dinah, her daughter, there was a ta'ina, could save Esav here too, save Esav, go, go get married to Esav. We've spoken about this many years, many times over the years. What's the ta'ina, the complaint against Yaakov Avinu? What was he supposed to do? What did he do wrong? Any normal father would do this and should do this. So where is the complaint? And to have such an onesh. You know what it is? That Dinah should go and be raped by a menuval. She conceived from this guy. It's clear in Chazal, she conceived from this guy. You know that the rachmanus, V'chein lo ya'aseh b'Yisrael, when the brothers heard this, they couldn't even believe it. It was such a catastrophic story, the worst. You see the reaction of the brothers, V'chein lo ya'aseh b'Yisrael, and this was all a punishment to Yaakov Avinu for what? For what? Baalei mussar speak in great length, the נועל, that extra locking of the door. He locked the box. He put her in a box, and he locked the box. You have to lock the box? Lock the box? The pshat, locking the box. The answer is there was a certain inner, yeah, inner, yeah, he'll never get my daughter. Yeah, he'll never get her. You don't have to go that way. He didn't have to go there. He didn't have to be נועל. Put her away, hide her. He doesn't know she exists, and that's all. Why do you have to be נועל? It's mussar more than it is pshat, because I would tell you, if it was my daughter, I'd put ten locks, right? I wouldn't lock her, I would lock her, and I would throw away the key. That's what I would do.

Because if not, Esav could always get there. Esav could find a way on how he could, you know, believe me, picking locks was from the least gangsterish shachin that Esav did, okay? So, what did he do wrong? What, what, what? And the teretz, rabboisai, is pashut. Rav Shach, zecher tzaddik v'kadosh livrachah, shivah zatzal, says pshat in the Chazal: at the end of the day, what he did was right. But at no point did it ever enter thinking, you know, what would be if I would give it to him and he would change? Yes, the decision definitely was the right decision, but nothing went into the decision process, It's my brother, and I got to do something for him. Think about it. The decision should have been a difficult one. The decision should have been based on, let's see it from all sides, and one of those sides should have been, He is my brother, and I think that's what Rosh Yeshiva meant. And ach is an ach is an ach is an ach, and the ach angle never entered the decision process, the thought process of the decision. We don't find anywhere that he made a shikul back and forth. You know, it's my brother, maybe I should, but no, I can't. It was so poshut, it was so definite, there was no questions asked. Which means, deep down, there was never concern. Maybe I can help my brother. Maybe. היא רבייסי, she was a tzad. Otherwise, there's no explanation. There is no other way to, so to speak, tackle this Chazal. What are Chazal saying? What are Chazal saying? Who would give his daughter? And the teretz is, Avadi, you can't give the daughter. But in the discussion, in the thought process that came to this conclusion, there was never an angle, It's my brother, what do I do? It's true, thought for one second, and if my brother would marry and she would get better, I can't do it. Think. That itself, says Rosh Yeshiva, was the ta'ina. And what he means to say is everything we've spoken. At the end of the day, if the cheshbon, it's my brother, doesn't come into a cheshbon, there's something wrong. The question is, but such an onesh? It's a very, very, very, very severe onesh for such what would seem a minute issue of not thinking and not— First of all, it would be a tremendous onesh even if he did something wrong. But koshkein, the way we're learning, he didn't do anything wrong. It was right to what he did, but it lacked the sensitivity for a brother. That's enough to have the story of Dinah. Now, I'll tell you what I think the pashut pshat is. Vateitzei Dinah, Chazal say that it was her fault. It was actually her fault. She went out, she did something wrong. She was a yatzianis. The truth is, we know from Chazal that there's no such thing as an ones for a person when it affects all the people around them, unless they also deserved it. It can't be that someone gets an ones and because of that ones, the relatives around are suffering when they don't deserve it. That's a mefurash Chazal. So Chazal here are trying to identify why would Yaakov deserve such a thing. And the answer is this story of Shechem, midah k'neged midah. What's the midah k'neged midah? Since you don't want your daughter to get married to Esav, your brother, you know what? I'll find her a different shidduch, Shechem. So the midah k'neged midah is, you don't want your brother? Okay, we'll give you somebody called what? Worse than your brother, right? Even a bigger novel than your—if it's possible such a thing, Shechem. I would say Rabbeinu said different there. I was thinking about it a lot over the years. It's interesting that Shechem did what he did, right? Shechem did what he did, and midah k'neged midah for what Yaakov locked her in the box is the story...

Shechem. I would say maybe it's not directly Shechem taking her, but the entire scenario of what happened was midah keneged midah, and I'll explain to you. You know, midah keneged midah works that the Eibishter does exact because He's just. If you do A wrong, then A is the onesh, not B. It has to be exactly according to the chet. But then there's another cheshbon, not only because the Eibishter is yashar, but because the Eibishter wants you to learn a lesson. The midah keneged midah is there that when I see this onesh, I could trace it back to the chet so I learn a lesson. By goyim, it's not about teaching them a lesson. By goyim, it's about the onesh. By goyim, it's about the onesh. And since it's about the onesh, sometimes Rabbeinu Sholom could give big oneshim, even though from Rashi in Yisro is mashma, ati dati, that the Rabbeinu Sholom is great, that He did it midah keneged midah, He drowned them because they drowned the Bnei Yisroel. We could discuss at a different time that Rashi. But the point is, midah keneged midah normally is the Rabbeinu Sholom is just and gives the punishment according to the chet. But by Klal Yisroel there's another inyan in midah keneged midah, and that is to take a lesson, to teach the person what went wrong. You know, by Shechem, the Misiras Nefesh of the brothers, Shimon and Levi, over their sister. Shimon and Levi put themselves in sakanah, in danger. Mesiras nefesh for the sake of a sister. She didn't want to leave, so what does Shimon? Shimon promises her, I'll marry you, knowing that she has a baby from Shechem. It says clearly, V'lakachnu es b'noseinu. It says the bnei Yissachar, b'noseinu is going on the daughter that's coming from Dinah. V'lakach—how is it b'noseinu? What b'noseinu means? The child. We're going to take Leah with the child. We're taking her back. And she doesn't want to go, and Shimon says, I'll marry you. That's called mesiras nefesh for a brother, midah keneged midah, Yaakov Avinu. You showed lack of mesiras nefesh in your decision process, in hiding Dinah. Midah keneged midah. I'm going to show you how Shimon v'Levi, what it means to do for a brother and sister. The actual chet—I'm sorry, the actual tragedy, so to speak, of Shechem was Dinah. She was goremet with her hanhaga. The midah keneged midah, how does it relate back to Yaakov somehow? It has to be that Yaakov was affected, and the answer is Shimon v'Levi. I'm going to show you what it means achvah. I'm going to show you what it means to do for a brother. This, rabosai, is the lesson. If Esav—Esav becomes a brother, so to speak, that we have to be careful not to hurt. How much more for Shurso. How much more for Shurso, real brothers. And how much more for Shurso, friends in the shul. They're also brothers. They're not Esav. How many times do we do mitzvahs al cheshbon acherim, not taking others into consideration? The lesson is not only we can't do anything to hurt. That's a lesson from the beginning of the parasha. But the lesson of din is even more, that Yaakov Avinu didn't take in consideration that he might be able to help his brother and he's not doing, and that's already also not good. Some would say he did the biggest mitzvah. He was doing the biggest mitzvah. He was putting away din. He was protecting his daughter. He was a tremendous father. They would call it chinuch, they would call it shmira. He's protecting his daughter from the outside world. Chazal are telling us, at some point in that, lacked sensitivity. Maybe you could have helped another person. And that's Esav and a daughter. Imagine when it's not Esav and it's not a daughter. It's about anything else that we do in life.

That we quote-unquote think is a big mitzvah, if it's al cheshbon acheirim, it becomes a tremendous thing. It's interesting, Chana, Pnina. Pnina lost all her children. She lost all her children. She used to go and chip Chana and tell her, Ha, take a look, I get more food than you, my husband. Chazal ask, why would she do that? She אמר שס, says Chazal, l'shem Shamayim niskavnah. Her intentions were l'shem Shamayim. So if her intentions were l'shem Shamayim, so why did she get such a severe onesh, such a severe onesh that she should lose all her children? Boy, says, Chapela. So there's a very famous vort from the Kotzker, L'shem Shamayim. How do Chazal know it was l'shem Shamayim? So the Kotzker Rebbe said, because such a rishus, such an evil thing to hurt a woman who doesn't have children, can only be done if you're convinced you're doing it l'shem Shamayim. If a person is not convinced you're doing it l'shem Shamayim, there is no way, there is no way that he could have done a thing like this. L'shem Shamayim, rabboisai, is a very, very loaded gun. It's a loaded gun, if I could use those words. If it's shot properly, used properly to help people, then the shooting is hatzalah. If you shoot and it's wrong, you're hurting. You're shooting a gun out of context, doesn't belong. Innocent, whatever the cases may be, that gun is retzichah. L'shem Shamayim could be hatzalah and it could be retzichah. You got to be very careful. Hatzalah or retzichah. You know, it's interesting, we find in the parsha—so let's get back to Pinah one second. So you see from Pinah, a pelldike thing, the dakus of meaning l'shem Shamayim, but it was misplaced. Something was wrong with that l'shem Shamayim, or it was takah not l'halachah, that even though it was l'shem Shamayim, she still shouldn't have done it. That l'shem Shamayim becomes evil. That l'shem Shamayim becomes rishus. That l'shem Shamayim becomes retzichah. And when you're rotzeach and akarah, the result was Pinah, chas v'shalom, unfortunately. Unfortunately. You see, Pinah was a tzaddekes, no question. Chazal never said she was a bad person. And what she did was l'shem Shamayim, and yet the onesh she got was as if she'd be a murderer. The onesh she got was as if she was a murderer. L'shem Shamayim is a loaded gun. When used properly, in the right context, then it's hatzalah. You're saving, you're protecting the world, you're protecting people. When it's misused, when you fire quickly, when you fire off the sling of a shot, so to speak, without proper understanding of the situation. Man, you could be convicted for murder. That's the, that is the danger, l'shem Shamayim. And just like every gun has protection, it has a protection that it shouldn't shoot it off wrongly or quickly or in the wrong context, everyone's l'shem Shamayim needs this same thing. And like Yaakov says, Im Lavan garti, v'taryag mitzvos shamarti. That's in the context of lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im. You got to be careful that the kiyum hamitzvos, l'shem Shamayim, must be lo lamadti mima'asav hara'im, not in the wrong place or the wrong time misplaced. You know, you look at the Yerushalmi, has a different girsa that we have in the Haggadah. We have in the Haggadah, echad chacham, v'echad rasha. What's the opposite of a rasha, rabosai? Tzadik. The Yerushalmi has that girsa in the Haggadah. The way the Yerushalmi brings, it's echad tzadik v'echad rasha. It's the opposites. We don't have that. Why? Why do we have chacham and tzadik, chacham and rasha? Says Reb Yerucham a marvelous devar.

Tzadik. Tzadik could be a dangerous thing, rabosai, because if it's misplaced at the wrong time, it's a rishus. It could be the most. The expression Reb Yerucham used to say is that a tzadik mit zayn tzidkus could do much worse than the rasha with his rishus. Sure, avada. How many times could a person hurt another person l'shem Shamayim, thinking he's really doing Hashem's work? Thinks he's right. I notice you all bad machloikes and are rooted in, I'm right. Tzadik. You know, there's a very famous joke that the Velt says. The Mishnah says, Kol machloikes shehi l'shem Shamayim, sofah l'hiskayem. The end will always remain, it'll always be around. And any machloikes which is not l'shem Shamayim will not last, will peter away. So the Velt says, a sharp vort: Any machloikes that is the people, they think it's l'shem Shamayim. They're rounding themselves around the core of it's l'shem Shamayim. That will be sofah l'hiskayem, will last forever and ever. That's what it means. Kol machloikes, that it's the people are believing that it's l'shem Shamayim, sofah l'hiskayem. It's going to go on and on and on because people are convinced l'shem Shamayim, they'll do anything. Says Reb Yerucham, echad chacham. You gotta be wise. Tzidkus, without the wisdom, can be misplaced tzidkus, and then it becomes rishus. And then it becomes rishus. You know, rabosai, I would like to just end with the following pshat in the Chazal. Yaakov is afraid, Vayira, Vayeitzer, says Rashi. What was he afraid? Shema yehareg, v'shema yaharog acherim. Maybe he'll kill, or maybe he'll kill others. Fragt an alte kasha, what do you mean, why is he afraid of that? Haba l'horgecha, hashkem l'hargo. So what are you afraid of exactly? Either he'll kill me, and if I kill him, so it's great. It's wonderful. So the Velt says a vort, they were supposed to die on the same day. Lamah eskal shneichem yom echad? Rivka already told him they'll end up dying on the same day. So this is what he's afraid of. He's afraid that if he kills Esav, he'll also get killed. It's going to have to be in the same day. Oh, yehareg, or yaharog acherim, which is also not good, which means he's going to die anyway. So he's afraid. Azoy iz och the developed pshat. I would have said a little different vort. Shema yehareg. He's afraid that maybe he'll get killed. Shema yaharog acherim. Who says I was 100% right for killing the other person? Shema yaharog acherim shelo k'din. What's called a rodef? Maybe I'll misread. Maybe I'll be quick to the gun, to shoot the gun. Yeah, he's Esav, let me go kill him anyway. He was pachad, shema yehareg, and then he has the right to kill Esav. Shema he'll be taka horeg acherim, and it wasn't right to kill him. Hold, it's emes hapshat, rabosai. Shema yehareg. And then it would have been better off he would have killed Esav first, or all the people who came with Esav. But maybe, shema, the other side is that he wasn't really what a rodef. It wasn't really that he was mamash going to kill him. Mimeila, he was afraid that he'd be jumping the gun, so to speak, and yareg acherim. You have to be very careful, rabosai, to measure properly the response that you take if it's taka warranted, because if it's warranted, it's mutar. And if it's not warranted, then it becomes yareg acherim, yehareg v'al yaavor. Even when somebody officially is coming with a gun at you, even officially when somebody is coming with a gun at you. But lelamad, the middos, middos tovos dictates how shmiras hamitzvos is supposed to be, because if you don't have those middos tovos, you have ma'asim ra'im, you'll see the shmiras hamitzvos completely different. You'll find things in the Torah that tell you to go do the worst things. Yeah, this mitzvah is telling me to go hate this guy. But if you have ma'asim tovim, then you understand that that's not what that mitzvah means, and that's not what that mitzvah is telling me. It's a whole different shmiras hamitzvos.

Shmiras hamitzvos, in the context of maasim tovim, says Yaakov, lo lomadti mimaasav hara'im, because everybody thinks they're right, even Lavan. You know, it's interesting, one of Lavan's taanos is, Lo asah chein bimkomeinu las hatzirl lifnei habechirah. It's taka emes lahalacha. It's an interesting thing. It's mamash lahalacha. That's the halacha. Halacha is you don't marry the younger in the face of the older, in front of the older. And we use it lahalacha, what he was saying. So Lavan was saying, What are you talking about? First you didn't shulchan aruch. He's telling Yaakov, You're the talmid chacham. You don't know that this is the halacha? And what's the answer? You liar, what you are, because if we made up that way, it would be fine. But you cheated me and lied to me, and now that you were caught, you use the halacha. See the difference? If he would have came and said that that's the halacha in the first place, gevaldik. That's not what he says. What does he say? He first tried to cheat his way through everything. He was trying to get caught. All of a sudden he found himself in such, First halacha, I have a raya from a Shulchan Aruch that I'm right. Ah? He also shmiras hamitzvos. Lavan walked around saying... You know what the pshat is? At the end of the parsha, we find that Lavan runs after Yaakov Avinu. Here, what do you run after Yaakov? You want to kill him. He was caught. You know what he says? I ran after you to send you away with the b'tufim uvacholes. I wanted to make a seudas preidah. It says in Shulchan Aruch, right? There's an inyan called seudas preidah. Chasudas preidah. No, isn't there? Don't—every person who leaves yeshiva, don't we make a seudas preidah for him? Who's the inventor of seudas preidah? Lavan. Lavan's saying, If had you only told me you were leaving, I would have sent you off b'supim uvacholes. I would have gotten a rosh yeshiva to come speak, a guest speaker to speak about how much we'll miss you. Big tzaddik, Lavan, huh? That's when he gets caught. When he gets caught, then it becomes, I really meant it, you know, mitzvos and tzidkus. And what was it really about? Well, his middos ra'os. It was about all his middos ra'os. You have to be careful, rabosai, lo lomadti mimaasav hara'im. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.