Parshas Vayakhel: The Pursuit of Sincere Mitzvos Beyond Societal Approval

You can tell me the truth. I won't tell anyone. Have you ever been finished with your Shmona Esrae, ready to take those three steps back and Ose Shalom out of there? But you choose to wait around for a minute or two, wanting some fellow friends in Mespala Lim to think of you as a really holy, passionate prayeror, a brilliant Mespala. So you hold yourself by it like hi nitsar right before the end of Yulur aton. So standing silent for a couple more minutes so that people around you will not God forbid think of you as a weak-hearted prayeror, but rather you wait until one of the last ones, wait a couple extra minutes, take your three steps back. So everyone says, whoa, he really likes to dive in a nice starkish Shmona Esrae. But then, when you take those three steps back, something funny happens. You look to the right and would you believe it? You see Yosef and Yakov that they're still praying. What a bunch of lunatics. What do they think they are? Or, rebaz, they think they're just like the next great Godel Adar, that you should pray and swivel like that Back and forth. What are you? A faker? You guys are ultra-orthodox. You gotta be normal. You gotta be chilled. You gotta be normal. You can't pray like that. So you're eight to 10 minutes Shmona Esrae. That's a couple minutes longer than mine. Like I shouldn't really want that. I'm in a sweet spot, not to mention. You looked over your left shoulder and see Bobby Scotty and Jerry who have been finished with their Shmona Esrae for some time now. They're diving a couple minutes shorter than yours. Their Amida prayer was only but two or three minutes and they were finished by the time you were up to Salah Lanu. So you look over there and say or at least thinking it, but wouldn't ever dare say it out loud I mean, come on, guys, at least try a little bit in your prayers. I mean, come on, that's not a Shmona Esrae, but the person believes himself his perfect. Six and a half minutes Shmona Esrae, four and a half minutes Shmona Esrae is the perfect amount. Not too long, not like those ultra orthodox people, and not too short, god forbid, but right there in the sweet spot. Like the Ram Bala always says, you know, you got to have a little of this, a little of that. The Derek Mamoutza, the Derek, the straight road, that's me, that's what we think, and everyone else? They're the foolish, crazy ones that need fixing. It's interesting, the uncanny ability of the mind to rationalize. I don't believe anyone ever commits sins, because by the time that we are involved in the sin, we've already have 15 proofs for why it is that the sin is not only permitted but actually a mitzvah. God wants me to do it Rationalization. You know, the Gomorrah says in Sota that no one ever sins unless they are overcome by a big wind, a feeling of ruach, stos, temporary foolishness, some short-lived craziness, drunkenness, overcome with lust and drive to do something that's wrong. Somehow it becomes proper, allowed and rationalized as the perfect thing to do right here, right now, that even God wants it. You really think that I shouldn't have this chocolate cake right now, even though I really am not supposed to, either because my friend said no, or maybe I'm on a diet. But you understand that if I don't eat the cake then it'll be a huge avarice, because it could be that my mother made it and now she's going to think that I don't like her food. And what about the quibet of aim? Aren't we supposed to have a cake? Oh, and maybe that I'm fleshick so I can't have milkshakes right now. I've got to wait a little bit longer. But don't you know how important Shalom bias is. I mean, the Zohar says that if you don't have Shalom bias then the Shechina could leave. So I have to eat this cake. I'm eating it, le shema. I want to make a really beautiful and loud bracha, like Rabbi Victor Miller. That's why I'm eating this cake. But if a person is in touch with their motives, their inner self, they're able to understand what's really driving their actions and when and where something is, they're refugably us in, unquestionably us in. When there's monastro, it may be too short or maybe too long. Part of what we're on this world to do is to meet ourselves and to see ourselves for what we truly are, and Muster helps us do that. Rebchai Mishmulelevits points to this Yisid and applies it to a Rashi here. That really paints a picture of words, unspoken, of a story that's between the lines, when impartial by Yakel. Many different people, in fact all people, were gathering around Moshe Rabbenu to be a part of the GoFundMe, the GoRaiset, the Chesed Fund, to go and build the Tabernacle. Men, women and child children. They all came Moshe. We want to donate, no matter what it is, we want to do it. The Haniseim. But the leaders. But the priests, the leaders, they brought Avnash, but Rashi, citing Rebnassun, picks up on the fact that then to see him, the word the leaders and their donation is spelled. Missing a couple letters, missing the Yuds. She says that this is some veiled and implied rebuke. They were stripped of some letters in the Torah and their name because they made a mistake. Perhaps you know the story, but they were with the best intentions. They gave their word to let the Jewish people give what they can, but we'll top it off and write the big check at the end for whatever is left and whatever that number is, moshe, you put it on our tab. We're the big donors, we'll give the big check. Everyone probably was happy to hear that Seems to be a very nice and righteous action, very giving, full of nidivus. But they were stripped of their letters and their name because the Torah testifies, rashi brings it here. So let's remember that there was laziness. Let's remember that there are some of the greatest people ever to live. So let's take it with a grain of salt. But these in the Siam. There was some laziness, some sluggishness in this big pledge of topping off the final bill being the big matcher, a brilliant donation, but it was filled with some subtle motives, infected with some subconscious laziness. They should have jumped into action and not negotiated with the terrorist here, with the laziness Yat Zahara. There was some rationalization on their level. We are told here in a very clear way that we do not negotiate with the Yat Zahara and the negative Mido's, yom Khaim Shmalevitz tells us, pointing to it here, rabir Rukh Hamsin is a similar tune that the Nassim. Who could argue that they weren't pledging? Something that was astonishing. It was wonderful that Klaal Yusro, it's got their leaders backing them. It's how fundraisers go you go get a big donor to match it all and then you go do the work. That's great. Financially speaking, more money would be donated, it would seem, but what ended up happening was that all the money was given. There was no place for them to donate at the end until the actual celebration, and then they learned their lesson and donated right away. But at this instance there was a slip-up, a mistake, some laziness, that what they should have done has been like everyone else and jumped into action and donated right away. Because we do not take the bridge of laziness to the other side of the river, even if that other side of the river is Al-Amhabah, a big khidash, a new, novel idea. You know, when we're waking up in the morning, no one ever hits the snooze button because they just need a couple more minutes in bed. It's normally because I'm going to dive in better when I go back to sleep and wake up. I need to be more well rested so I can do a better job at the office. Rationalization it's so hard for a person to really know what's driving him. And now, even in our biggest moments, our finest hours, it's still imperative that we know what's driving our actions, even when they are running to dovetail. A person needs to understand why he's going Now. Hopefully it's for the basic reason of just going to pray, but maybe he's just running away from something at his house. When a person is pledging a big number of sudakah, is he doing it for the sudakah or a subconscious mind? Is there something else going on? Perhaps he wants his name up there in the lights, the bright lights in the big city. There's a really sharp idea here. If you don't like sharp ideas, you could fast forward, or it'd be like Isaac's share. You find some nink and gruity, some disparity and some descriptions of Avshalom man in tenach. We're going to leave the explanation for a different time but I'm going to present the steara and deliver the sharp idea. One positive it seems to imply that he was kind of wayward, described as a Ben-Sora Umore, rebelling against his holy father, drinking wine, eating meat without asking, without permission. But in another positive, it seems to imply that Avshalom was a big nuzzer, a holy nuzzer, the steara. The contradiction before us is that a Ben-Sora Umore, a wayward child, a rebellious child, must drink wine in order to be called a Ben-Sora Umore. But a nuzzer he can't drink wine. So which one is he? Socomar, in conflict, and the way that Rabitzchak, isaac, the charnel of Racha, with his brilliant knowledge of the human psyche, the human mind, he told us that you know, they're not a steara. Avshalom was a Ben-Sora Umore. He would fres and the nausea. He was just a tiniest fresher. He felt like a schmack, he felt like pleasure in feeling uplifted on a nausea. He walked around with an excitement, with a certain outstretched neck, very confident about himself. There are sometimes that even positive mitzvos, like being a nausea, could really be done with cruel intentions. A fresher, someone who was in it for lustful purposes, even though the action was holy, a pledging of millions of dollars. But you use laziness inside of your husband and that's prohibited. The king of this idea, the one who championed this idea, really probably brought it to the earth the idea of the subconscious mind, the motive behind our actions. And now, even if one is actually doing something positive, he still needs to make sure that he's doing it for the right reasons. Isra Yisrael Salantar, the inaugurator of the commissioner of the Muslim movement, and two interesting practices that he would have in order to get to the bottom and discover his real motives, what he was about in life. Well, they tell that once they saw him with a pen and a paper doodling about, kind of mindlessly looking around, not really engaged in any thought, or so it would seem, and they asked him what are you writing on a piece of paper? And there be straw said well, I'm trying not to think about it and I'm trying to just let my hand glide and let my unconscious mind draw something on the paper so I can see what's going on, see how, in the shapes, in the pictures, what's really going on inside of my head, where I am, and, with perm coming up, listen to how we're be. So we celebrate perim and I'm not endorsing any of these practices. Everyone discussed with your rabbi about the mitzvah of intoxication on perim and how you should approach it. But Rabi Strel Salantar was described by the Al-Eshor I believe it's a quote from somewhere else actually that on perim he would get drunk as drunk as low in the cave with his daughters. That level of drunkenness, intoxication, why? Because he wanted to see a test, abkhina, of when he would lose his seikhl. What would his subconscious actions depict, what would they show, what would they portray? And this was a chance to remove seikhl and test himself, get down and understand his motives. It's part of the entire goal of our lives is to get to working on mitzvahs, to do them l'shima, to do them entirely for the proper reasons. But it's a life's work and that starts with just thinking about why am I doing something? Why am I pledging to donate millions of dollars? Is it because I want to top it off and make sure that I donate so that it'll be done and Hashem has a beautiful home to live in? Or is there a slight pinch of laziness of aslis? Is it something that God will not find favor in? In this situation? The Nisim paid the price heavily by losing letters inside of the eternal safer Tyra. In conclusion, I'd also like to finish with the Shlomo Hoffman. He was one of the chief medical mind experts, a massive Talmud-Khacham, who also had all of his knowledge from Ram-Bam and Ori. Astral, or Astral-Salaamntar, believed everything was in the Torah and lived that way and taught that way. I turned to him for a lot of different approaches and some of these muster ideas from Rabi'u-Rachim, and he said that it isn't unheard of even for somebody to use Torah study, or Tafila for that matter, to cover up other insecurities and other things that need work. He may be lacking in confidence. A person may be lacking in balance in life, sometimes Hasmada a work ethic of learning through the night. It may, of course, be the right thing, right Torah study, but if you know your motives, why are you doing it? Are you trying to drown out a feeling? Are you trying to impress your peers? Well then, even Amitstva with poor motives is something that we have to be wary of. The idea, in short, is to know yourself, to learn yourself, to learn your motives, to learn your Lishmah, to learn and think about. Why am I doing this? Is it going to encroach or step into territory? That is a bad Mita that may have laziness in it May have COVID or Tyva or Kena in it. Well, we don't negotiate with terrorists, so we don't take that path. And, just like the rest of Kala Yusr al, we see the good. When you have a chance to do Amitstva, you leap out of your bed, you go with Rizas, with a lacquer to you, with a zestfulness, and you run to Moshe Rabbeinu and donate for the Mishkan. Learn your motives. Don't negotiate with terrorists. Follow the Torah and when you understand yourself, hopefully we'll reach a point in our lives that we'll be able to do Hashem's Mitzvos totally for their own sake, just to bring nachas recht. Akedom Вот развит Umei Nurul.