Parshas Devarim: DON'T BE A SORE WINNER

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Some call it Devarim, others Deuteronomy.

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I prefer to say Deuteronomy for it's a super cool word, but however you slice it, whether you say tomato or tomato, this week we begin the Sefer Devarim with Parshas Devarim.

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It is the fifth and final installment of the five books of Moshe Rabbeinu, of another cool word of the Pentateuch, david.

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Devarim primarily consists of the greatest public address ever delivered, which is so incredible that it's included in the Torah, and it is totally divine.

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An inspired talk, so hallowed that is action-packed with lessons of Musser that are so important that certain themes are reviewed, old laws are reintroduced because of their importance and the topical nature of how Klal Yisrael is going to be going into a new regime, a new life without Moshe Rabbeinu.

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So there are certain ideas that must be reiterated and certain lessons that must be emphasized due to their importance and the need for the Jewish people to be faithful to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

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Where this talk begins, these are the words of Moses when he addressed all of Israel in a very interesting location, a very graphic and detailed telling of where this talk happened.

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Some of these places we have yet to ever cross paths with, but we're told it was on the other side of the Jordan, through the wilderness, in the Arabah, near Suf, between Paran and Tophel, lobon, hatseros and Dezahov.

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But Rashi explains to us, in the very first Rashi of the Parsha, that these aren't just details of where the talk took place, where it transpired, but rather these are all subtle and veiled reproofs, critiques, criticisms of the nation.

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But Moshe Rabbeinu, wanting to give the rebuke in the perfect way and which really is a true masterclass of how to give criticism, moshe Rabbeinu wants to be sure to have the right regard for Israel's COVID in a circuitous way.

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Every one of these cities isn't just a reference to a city, but rather a little bit of a hint for the Jewish people to hopefully understand the subtle rebuke of their Rebbe In the wilderness, baravah Molsuf.

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All subtle references to different sins.

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This week I want to focus on the last two words of the thesis statement of Moshe Rabbeinu and Sefer Devarim, which literally translates as just a city, dei Zahab, a place.

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But Rashi tells us that the critique was a hochichan al ho'igel.

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Moshe was really rebuking them about the golden calf debacle, the golden calf meltdown, one of the greatest sins to ever be committed.

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Why did they do this sin?

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What was the rebuke about?

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The idolatry?

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No, but that gave them rebuke for the eagle that they made, that they formed and fashioned, because because of the excess gold that they acquired.

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The Pasuk says in and with the increased silver and the abundant of wealth of gold, you turned it into an Avodah Zarah.

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And Rabbi Ruchem points out it's remarkable to see how the perfect Baal Moser, the ultimate therapist, moshe Rabbeinu, when he's giving rebuke, he gets down to the root cause of the sin.

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He gets down to the causal factors.

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He rebukes them about the worst sin ever committed and doesn't even mention anything about Avodah Zarah, but rather the cause of the sin, which was silver, did I give them in abundance and wealth, in gold, and they made it into a ball.

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Albus Derebnassin says that Rashi, quoting this Medrash and Moshe Rabbeinu's rebuke.

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It's all clear here, because that's exactly what the words say Deezahav.

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It's not just a poetic, flowery Lashon, but Deezahav can be read die, it is enough gold.

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The Medrash says it's alluding to what Aaron Akoin shouted at the people when he said it's enough gold, die, die, die, it's enough, stop.

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Shouted at the people when he said it's enough gold.

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Die, die, die, it's enough, stop with the gold.

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But the Gemara tells us that die is a hub was also what Moshe Rabbeinu used to get us out of trouble.

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Moshe Rabbeinu was able to save the Jewish people by telling Hashem this horrible sin, that you now want to wipe us out and annihilate us because we danced Torah the Kisatzka around a golden calf of Odzara at the mountainside.

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It wasn't the Jewish people's fault.

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The story can be compared Mashallah Adam To a person, shehoy Eloi Ben, that had a son.

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He gave this son everything in the world, gave him life, served on a silver platter.

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He gave him delicious steak and fancy French wine, gave him endless amounts of cash.

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He gave him an unlimited debit card or credit card, a black card, buy what you will, unlimited cash.

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And he brought him down to the brothels, to the slums, to the place where the low lives hang out.

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Ma ya'aseh oso haben shaloyecheteh.

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What could the child have possibly done to save himself from sinning?

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Moshe Rabbeinu likens the story of the Egil Azov to a young child who has been given everything in life that he could possibly want from his dad.

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Klaal Yisrael has become stuffed to the brim, stuffed to the rafters with endless cash from the Mitzrim, as they were able to knock on their doors and say hand me that Rolex and hand me that Tesla.

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As we were on the way out, we knew where it was from Makas Choshech.

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So we were incredibly wealthy all tycoons, all fancy summer homes in the Hamptons.

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We had so much cash we didn't know what to do with it.

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So Ma Yasa HaBen Shalom, yechta Moshe, argued, argued brilliantly that therefore don't punish the people because, god, it was you that gave us all that wealth, so forgive the nation.

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It's almost hard to say and hard to imagine someone with that amount of azos, that amount of determination to save his people, would say such a thing to the master of the world.

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Nobdesler actually, on a side note sidebar, writes in Michtav Melio an essay about this how there's ways to bring about a kiddush Hashem in the world and there are certain individuals that are needed to step up and be a leader of a generation and actually bring out the Jewish people's malos, their pros, and squash their cons and deliver a message and fight back with Hashem.

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A very interesting, interesting piece.

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That's neither here nor there, but what is nogea?

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Is that Moshe Rabbeinu?

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He pointed to the cause of the sin and how to get us out of it, how to say it really wasn't our fault Because we were wealthy, we were prosperous and we had it all.

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The sin that's begeder.

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That is simply detailed as ma ya'asa ha-ben shaloyechta.

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What could the kid have possibly done to have saved himself?

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He was wined and dined and given the good life with an unlimited credit card to go and do what he will and with his youth.

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What do you expect and how could he be blamed?

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I find it to be fascinating that, chazal, when they're looking to the causal factor, when they're looking to the reason as to why it is that the Jews committed this egregious sin, they don't mention Avodah Zarah, but just the increase of wealth, the acquiring of prosperity.

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That's where they got the Musser, or that's what, at least, was referenced as what led to the eventual sin.

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It's unbelievable Just to think about why it is that wealth leads to sin, why it is that when people have it good in their comfort, does it end up in a avodah zarah.

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I'd like to explore this concept today and bring out a fundamental point that one must keep in mind if he wants to have peace and success in life.

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I'd like to direct your attention to this incredible ramchal that you should hopefully remind yourself every day.

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Incredible Ramchal that you should hopefully remind yourself every day.

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Ramchal writes in Mesilas Yisharim when it comes to the point of life, v'nimsa Shehumusam Be'emes B'teicham Elchama HaChazaka.

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Man is amidst a raging battlefield.

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A war Life down here is bullets whizzing by Ki Kol Linyon, echa Olam.

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A war Life down here is bullets whizzing by the entire world and every matter of this world, every situation, Whether it is good or whether it is evil.

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It is a trial for man.

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It's a test, the pauper on one side and wealth on the other.

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Just as Shlomo HaMelech said, there's one side.

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Lest I become totally stuffed full, comfortable, and then say that person forgets God and all of his success With a person that's suffering, destitute and poor, with a lacking, that person also disattaches himself from the source of blessing the ganavti and he steals Ha'shalva mitzarechad.

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Whether it is peace and tranquility, ha'yisur mitzarechad, and anxiety and stress on the other side.

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It is all heim nisyonos la'adam, and anxiety and stress on the other side.

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It is all challenges and tests for a man.

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And if you should be strong at front and in back, on both sides, you will then be a totally wholesome and perfect man and emerge from this corridor and enter into that palace and enjoy the eternal light and life.

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These words, you can't take them for granted.

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You can't take them and add anything else to them other than what it says here, without any predetermined notions.

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Wealth, wealth or the lack thereof, is an isayon.

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Anxiety or tranquility is an isayon.

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Everything, no matter the situation, is a test to see how a person will.

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How will he do?

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Will he stick up for what's right?

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Will he attribute the success to God and will he look to above and see Hashem was brought to him, or will he attribute his success, his tranquility, his good fortune to his own pen or his own brains?

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Everything is a test.

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Everything is a test.

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Poverty, tension, wealth and tranquility, kolze hem nisionos la'adam, your spouse A test, your pet A test.

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These are items that are.

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They are, are they not?

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I'll let you in on a secret even Matan Torah is described as a test.

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Everything is a test.

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We get carried away in life and we get all tense when we have a challenge and we forget the basic truth that everything is a test.

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And Klal Yisrael, well, we're pretty good at passing tests.

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We are b'nei chayelim, we are soldiers that overcome.

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And whether it be the brutal crusades, the pillaging and lynching of Jewish families by Bogdan Chmielnicki, the murdering of a million Jewish souls in Beit Har, the burning of our holy temples, or six million annihilated in Germany, no matter if the blood has stained the oceans red because of the amount of massacring by the non-Jews against the holy nation, or whether it's the harassing of an innocent and holy Jewish mother.

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All of the pain, the scratching, the ailments, all of the black and blue marks, the battered and beaten Jewish people that have accepted blow after blow, after so much pain and suffering, that has continued to show our strength in Ha'anim Bitzar Echad about how, no matter the Nisayon, every single beating from an SSR agent or from a Nazi, may their name be erased it is all one loud booming, a tremendous Kiddush Hashem that that person enduring the suffering is declaring that I serve the eternal God and sticks and stones may break my bones, but you can never break my faith.

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You can argue that the Jews, we, have succeeded throughout this exile, ever since the second Besamigdash was burned and we were sent into Gullus, ever since the pain and suffering began and we wandered from country to country.

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You can make a strong case that we have succeeded in keeping our good Jewish faith and making sure that Torah lived on and that we prayed and set up shuls and mikvahs.

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The circumstances weren't easy.

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But you could argue that, hey, look at us now.

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But there is one test that it seems that the Klal Yisrael, that the Holy Nation, has yet to overcome.

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It is the V'osher Mitzad Echad.

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It is this great V'di Zahav that Moshe is referring to, the Jewish people.

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You should know, before I pass that Ha'osher Mitzah Echad, that a lot of gold and a lot of silver, it will lead towards dancing around a very distracting and tempting golden calf.

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Things get weird when people have it good.

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And you can argue that through all of the pillaging and murdering and lynching and the tension and anxiety and angst and murdering of innocent Jews and anxiety and angst and murdering of innocent Jews, that we have shown our strength.

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But can we say the same about the Jewish nation when we have been given autonomy, given freedom?

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Can we say that it is the same probability that a young boy stuck in the ghetto but at least close with his family and close with his rabbi of the town and he identifies as a Jew, that he most likely will remain Shomer Torah U Mitzvot?

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But can we say the same for some Jewish boy born a hundred years later, after the ghetto walls have fallen, and now he offers sacrifices to wealth, a summer home in the Hamptons, and he wants to be the top surgeon in Mount Sinai Hospital.

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Not that they aren't even high-end and sought-after things, maybe even ideas and things that most likely fit inside of the Torah.

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There is a place for it.

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It isn't openly prohibited.

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But can we say of the probability that that child will remain thirsty for Torah, one who wants to connect with the life giving entity, life saving entity, of the Torah?

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Can we say that that young boy will want to be one who was a master of the Talmud and will want to daven like his life depends on it?

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Hardly In our generation, you know.

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People ask it's so far away from Matan Torah.

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And how are we to be the nation, how are we to be the generation that can possibly bring any sort of furthering of the Jewish mission towards the ultimate goal of Mashiach?

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How are we supposed to accomplish something that Rabbi Akiva Eger couldn't do or didn't do, if the Vilna Gon and Rebekah Eger and the Ramchal were not able to bring a certain tikkun to bring the world to Mashiach, to bring it to the ultimate destination?

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What type of Kiddush Hashem.

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Can we do?

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That will create something even greater.

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But, folks, maybe we're forgetting that Ha'oni Mitzah Rechad and Ha'osher Mitzah Rechad, and you could argue that our generation is the wealthiest generation since the inception of the world.

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I don't know anybody that doesn't have running water or air conditioning, and I don't know anyone that doesn't have a roof over their head.

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I don't know anyone who has to deal with Russian czars stealing all their money, and I don't know anyone that doesn't have the necessary safarim at their disposal to know God's Torah.

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I don't know anybody that doesn't have access to take out food at least once a month, and I don't know anybody that hasn't had a vacation to somewhere nice, even if it's just for a day.

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These are things we take for granted that I don't believe previous generations could even believe.

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How good it is that we have it here.

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It gives us an opportunity of a asher mitzarechad.

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It gives us a chance to bring a kiddush Hashem into the world that maybe the world and the cloud you saw has yet to do.

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To be able to stay in the world committed, no matter the excess comfort that we enjoy or, depending how you look at it, or the excess comfort that we have to endure.

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I personally, being honest, would take her usher mitzah to Echad this way a lot better.

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I like the AC on 70 or 69, 68, depending on who else is in the room.

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It gives a certain ability and the wealth in our generation makes it that we could have a chance for a guy like me to be able to go to yeshiva or even stay in kol el and the old generation if you weren't top 1% in your IQ or you weren't the rabbi's daughter or son, you wouldn't have a chance to stay just studying Torah for as long as you could.

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But with the excess wealth and the people that are interested in giving charitable donations to Torah organizations and with the basic, very comfortable life that is the status quo in America, it gives us a chance to capitalize on the ease of life and to use it for good.

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But one must be warned that the same way that one could be a sore loser, you can also be a sore winner and you could become part of the content of what Hosea was screaming about when he said when wealth and happiness, prosperity, tranquility is all part of our lives, which is something that I hope continues to endure for every person.

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It should be there and more.

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But one should be there and more.

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But one should be very careful and very much warned that it's easy to then contemplate on our own successes, to dwell on another's misfortune with a smugness and for us to gloat over our own victories, that it ends up with a and hence Everything in life is a.

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Everything in life is a test, and we are placed on the battlefield.

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In our generation, everything in life is a test and we are placed on the battlefield In our generation.

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It ain't a secret that we have this unique nesayon, a nesayon of comfort, a nesayon of tranquility, a nesayon of that things.

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And success does come a lot easier and with a lot less hard work than how it used to be, and that's something that we have the opportunity to make a kiddush Hashem in this generation with.

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It seems that the answer, a way to stay focused, a way to understand success with the right or in the right light.

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It seems necessary to study the gate, the Shar HaBitachon of the Chavos HaLevovos, the gate of trust.

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It seems necessary to study the Ramban at the end of Parshah's Bo, both of these two great works of Jewish literature, over and over and over again, to remind ourselves that, yes, I put in all the effort and I did all of the work to bring that deal to a close, but that money in the bank account, after months and months of hard work that I put in it really is miraculous and all came from God.

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For us to be real about that and honest with ourselves, to understand that it really did come from God and it's truly miraculous in nature to be honest with ourselves and understand that really, that we're not, should be, we should not be people of me, hashem, we should not be people of that.

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It's all in me and my victory.

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It takes constant reminding, it takes constant paying attention in Shemona Esrei, that it's all from you, only you, l'vadcha Hashem and Shema Kolenu, that you, hashem, should give me what I want and that I should know and be reminded that I'm putting in the work and going through the motions.

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I'm making merely a Pesach, an opening for you to bless and therefore good things to happen.

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Never forget that life is a test, whether it be good or whether it be bad, whether it be filled with tranquility or filled with anxiety.

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They are both equally a challenge to see how you will respond, and we in our past have overcome the anxiety and the stress.

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Jewish people have done that, but we have a unique opportunity now, ladies and gentlemen, to be able to stay focused and to be able to still take all of, whatever it is, and the blessing that God gives us and dedicate it to the service of Hashem, be it through tzadka, be it through buying and purchasing the mitzvos, be it through sustaining our families in a normal way and not in an excess wasting of money and buying things that are totally unnecessary.

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Ha'oni mitzarechad, v'ha'osher mitzarechad the pauper on one side and the wealthy on the other.

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Let it be that Moshe's dying words, this epic soliloquy and the talk so glorious that it continues to echo until this day, let it be that it enters into our hearts and that we are reminded that, just as damning and as condemning and as destructive as the Nazis can be, so too, wealth, prosperity, happiness and forgetting that all of it is only from one place and should cause us to look up and serve him with faithfulness.

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Elahadzvarim these are the words that Moshe spoke when he addressed Israel, and the lesson that we, at this moment, should take to heart in a real way is that we can bring a kiddush Hashem into the world in a very unique and incredible way.

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All learned out from the Deezah of that we should stay focused and not lose track of our real goals and fall into the trap of what Hosea said.

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And silver did I give them in abundance and gold in abundance, but however, they made it into a ball, into Avodah Zarah.

Parshas Devarim: DON'T BE A SORE WINNER

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