An Elevating Elul Experience
by Rabbi
Pinchos Lipschutz
Sometimes, as you stand in the elevator and
wait out the ride, your gaze rests on the sign stating the weight limit for the
car. If the load exceeds a certain amount, the elevator is unable to rise and
reach its destination. No amount of cajoling, kicking, screaming or pressing
buttons will cause the elevator to ascend. The only hope of rising is to remove
some of the excess weight and lighten the load.
Elul is
here. The month of change and preparation for the holiest days of the year is
upon us.
Elul is the
elevator that enables us to rise to great heights. In order to take advantage
of the month of Ani LeDodi VeDodi Li, when Hashem prepares His embrace
for us, we have to drop the extra baggage we carry with us.
During the shivah period for the Mirrer rosh
yeshiva, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt”l, talmidim reminisced.
From their conversations it emerged that despite the enormity of the student
body and the rosh yeshiva’s own physical limitations, most talmidim
had merited some sort of meaningful encounter with him. For some, it had
been words offered in passing. For others, it was a line in a shmuess, a
brief brochah or a suggestion. He had the ability to change a life with
a single phrase or comment.
Rav Yosef Elefant, a maggid shiur at
Yeshivas Mir, explained the phenomenon using the example of a
construction site. There are huge blocks of stone or granite that need to be
moved. A group of muscled workers don’t have the strength to move them more
than a few inches. Yet, there they are, lifted high, to the thirtieth floor, by
a single man operating a machine. The machine is a crane, and it can accomplish
in moments what man could never do. It can lift immense loads with speed and
efficiency.
Rav Nosson Tzvi, said Rav Elefant, was like a
crane. Other rabbeim had to work for years to effect change and to lift
a bochur so high. The rosh yeshiva, whose mesirus nefesh
for Torah had given him supernatural abilities and gifts, was granted the
ability from Heaven to be able to lift a bochur in a single moment.
Elul is a
crane, giving us a rush of hope, a desire to grow, and a push to climb higher
and live more elevated lives.
Shoftim, the parsha
that ushers in the chodesh of Elul is filled with messages
that direct us to move forward, to rid ourselves of the excess weight that
holds us down and enable us to grab hold of the crane. The chatoim accumulated
over the course of the year form an albatross, preventing us from reaching our
potential.
When the nations of the world were offering
their children as sacrifices to pagan gods, the Torah commanded us to
institute a system of justice and jurisprudence. Tzedek tzedek tirdof,
pursue justice, lema’an tichyeh veyorashta es haaretz. Life, according
to the Torah, depends on the precision and exactitude of our laws.
The parsha enjoins us to appoint judges,
establish a functional police force, and anoint a king, who, in turn, is told
how to conduct himself. All these halachos demand a perfect communal
structure, where law and order is followed and people respect authority. These
ideas, the ancient laws of a Torah society, govern the human being as
well, each one an instruction on how to fight the yeitzer hora too.
Man carries a city within himself, with
competing kings and armies fighting for dominion. We have to police ourselves,
developing discipline and restraint so that our behavior mirrors the harmony of
the Torah. Our interpersonal conduct must be perfect and pure.
The posuk tells us, “Bo sidbok -
Connect yourself to Hashem.” How do we accomplish that?
We are commanded by the Torah, “Veholachta
bidrochov.” How do we walk in the path of Hashem?
Chazal explain
that we accomplish our mandate by emulating Hashem’s ways. By being
compassionate, like Him. By being merciful, like Him. By visiting the sick and
caring about others. By feeding the hungry and clothing the poor. By acting
responsibly in times of need and at all times. By being honest and forthright,
decent and upstanding.
Tomim
tihiyeh im Hashem Elokecha. The guiding principles of our lives must be temimus,
simplicity and humility. The excess weight that prevents us from flying high is
rooted in cheshbonos, an inflated sense of worth and petty calculations.
Following Hashem’s rules without rancor will
allow us to grow and flourish. Realizing that the Torah speaks to every one of
us, on our level, and that each of us has a yeitzer hora and our own
uphill battle to fight, is a segulah to succeed. We all have the ability
to succeed and grow and flourish. We must not allow other people to hold us
down. It doesn’t help to blame others for our failings. We have to work on a
serious diet, changing our bad habits and getting rid of our dangerous
addictions. We can be energetic and fulfilled, accomplishing all we desire, if
we would only lighten up on the actions that cause us to be apathetic. Elul
is the time to get to work on those things.
The Sefas Emes quotes his grandfather
who said that the word Elul is comprised of two words, lo spelled
with a vov and lo spelled with an alef. He explained that
this comes to tell us that to the degree that lo (with an alef)
anachnu, that we negate ourselves and our nefesh habahamis, lo
(with a vov) anachnu, we can be His, closer to Hashem.
The Ponovezher Rov was sitting with the Brisker
Rov when the conversation turned to the greatness of the Ponovezher Rov’s rebbi,
the Chofetz Chaim. The question was posed as to why the Chofetz
Chaim, whose brilliance and proficiency in learning is evident in every
paragraph of his Mishnah Berurah and his other classic seforim,
was celebrated as a tzaddik and not as a gaon.
The Brisker Rov explained that the Chofetz
Chaim davened for his gaonus to be concealed and remain
unnoticed. His request was granted and he became renowned worldwide only for
his piety.
The Ponovezher Rov wanted to follow up with
another question: If that is so, why didn’t the Chofetz Chaim daven that
his tzidkus remain hidden as well? His awe of the Brisker Rov prevented
him from posing the query.
Sometime later, the Ponovezher Rov met the Bais
Yisroel of Ger. The rebbe was learning from a Mishnah Berurah and
the Rov decided to ask him the question. He told the rebbe what
the Brisker Rov had said and asked why the Chofetz Chaim hadn’t davened for
his piety to be kept hidden.
The Bais Yisroel answered that the Chofetz
Chaim knew that he was a talmid chochom. He realized that many people
were unfamiliar with the sources he had at his disposal, which is why he wrote
the Mishnah Berurah in the first place. Thus, he davened that his
excessive learning and knowledge remain hidden. But, continued the rebbe,
the Chofetz Chaim did not know that he was a tzaddik. He reasoned that
he merely followed each and every halachah in the Torah, as every ehrliche
Yid is obligated to do. He had no idea that he was on a different level
than everyone else.
His temimus personified perfection and
wholesomeness in avodah.
Rav Mordechai Druk, a noted maggid in
Yerushalayim, would portray the Chofetz Chaim’s humility and temimus
with a story. A simple Radin coachman had come to the Chofetz Chaim to bemoan
his loss. Someone had stolen one of his horses. The tzaddik explained to
this Jew that as a traveling coachman, his horses inevitably trample on the
property of others and eat grass out of fields that line the road. “You
accumulated the benefits of gezel, so Hashem took that from you through
an act of gezel.”
“If so,” asked the simple villager, not
realizing the impudence of his question, “how come the rebbe’s coat was
stolen last week? Is he also being paid back for stealing?”
The Chofetz Chaim didn’t hesitate. “Of course,”
he responded. “I sell my seforim and sometimes pages are stuck together
or there are printing errors. Hakadosh Boruch Hu keeps a running cheshbon
and my stolen coat reflects that.”
Great men realize that events aren’t mere news
or conversation pieces. They are personal missives. Temimus allows a
person to walk humbly and honestly, and thus be “with” Hashem Himself at
all times.
The posuk in next week’s parsha
(20:1) says, “Ki seitzei lamilchomah,” laying out the laws of
doing battle with evil forces. Many meforshim explain that while the
Torah discusses battle against enemies, “lo dibrah Torah elah keneged
yeitzer hora,” there are hints as to how we must battle the yeitzer hora.
“Lo sira meihem,” do not fear him, “ki Hashem Elokecha imoch
hama’alcha mei’eretz Mitzrayim,” for Hashem who raised you from Mitzrayim
will be with you and assist you in your battle.
He will help us as we seek to rise. If we
demonstrate the inclination to improve ourselves, Hashem promises that He will
assist us.
In our day and age as well, we are promised
that we can succeed if we engage in proper shmirah and do teshuvah
for the way we have conducted ourselves and treated other people.
The parsha ends with the mitzvah
of eglah arufah, the procedure followed when a body of an unknown person
is found on the outskirts of a town. The gedolim of the city must wash
their hands over the eglah arufah and state that they neither killed the
person nor witnessed the act: “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom hazeh ve’eineinu
lo ra’u.”
To understand how a community can be gripped by
worry and pain, we don’t have to think back more than two months to when our
entire world was consumed with concern for the fate of three bochurim.
We still feel the anguish and won’t forget it anytime soon.
The story of the corpse found in middle of a
field no doubt made waves. People united in grief. The elders were forced to
confess. Why? Surely no one would suspect the elders of murdering a person.
The lesson of the eglah arufah is that
the leaders must declare that they set everything in place to prevent the
travesty of murder. They proclaim that they established a proper system of
justice and compassionate treatment of strangers. They state for all to hear
that the murder victim did not die due to negligence on their part. With the kohanim
at their sides, the zikeinim profess that they did all in their ability
to ensure that no person suffers abuse of any kind, especially of the kind or
degree that would lead to such a tragic demise.
The elders announce that they did their part to
create a fair, just, harmonious society. They gave a voice to the abused and
oppressed, and to the poor and those who cannot fight for themselves. They gave
a voice to the mute and strength to the weak, food to the hungry and succor to
the vanquished.
We must all be able to proclaim that we have
done what we can to set up institutions of jurisprudence, kindness and charity.
We have to be able to act courageously and without fear to ensure that we can
all say with complete honesty, “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom hazeh,” our
hands did not spill the blood - both literally and figuratively - of the
unfortunate victims in our community. Victims are not only the lonely and the
weak. We see in our day too many cases of well-known people with fine
reputations who are set upon. We must all do what we can to help them restore
their lives and beat back unjust charges, no matter the odds or public
perception.
We recently witnessed the fruits of very lonely
efforts, initially led by one heroic man who has made it his mission to defeat
the allegations that metzitzah b’peh is an inherently dangerous custom
perpetrated by barbaric people. He demonstrated that when we are dedicated to a
good cause and work valiantly lesheim Shomayim, we earn Divine
assistance and are able to proudly say, “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom hazeh.”
We can, and must, remove the impediments to
justice, be it kavod, middos raos, pursuit of wealth and power,
or simple fear, and allow truth to emerge, in our communities and in ourselves.
There is no better time than the present. There
is no season more opportune for shedding the baggage of agendas and petty
calculations. We can travel light, by entering this time of year focused only
on what is important and unloading the rest.
In order to be serious about rising, we have to
improve our middos so that we can seriously inspect ourselves and our
actions over the past year. We can then engage in the teshuvah process
and rid ourselves of that which loads us down and prevents us from reaching our
physical and spiritual potentials.
We can step into the elevator, grab onto the
crane, and rise high. In order to do so, we must be able to announce, surely
and securely, “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom hazeh,” that we have done all
we can to protect others and ourselves, from the yeitzer hora and his
evil designs.
We will be able to say that we have
strengthened our middos, mitzvah observance and Torah study to
the level that would enable the great men of our town to testify that we are
worthy of being granted another year of life.
And so may it be, for us and all of Klal
Yisroel, that these days of Elul are fully utilized to elevate us
into the book of life and brochah.