ELUL –
SOLIDARITY AND
SENSITIVITY
Shira Smiles shiur –
August 31,
2014/Elul 5, 5774
Summary by Channie
Koplowitz Stein
The month
of Elul is meant to be a time of introspection leading up to Rosh
Hashanah.
However, as Rabbi Gamliel Rabinowitz points out in Tiv Hamoadim,
most
people are very lax in this area, being even less cognizant of our
Master than
an ox is of its master. The yetzer horo convinces us that we’re
so busy with the
physical aspects of yom tov preparation that we neglect the spiritual
aspects
of the yom tov that also require preparation.
While we
tend to think that we must focus almost exclusively on our relationship
with
God at this time of year, it is at least equally important to focus on
the “social”
mitzvoth that
foster our relationship with our fellow man, especially since proper
attention
to this area will indeed bring us closer to the One God Who has created
us all.
Rabbi
Mattisyahu Solomon clarifies this point in Matnas Chaim, by
quoting the Mabit,
in explaining that the luchot, the two Tablets of the Law
that Moshe
brought down from Sinai, were equal. How is that possible when the
first five
utterances, those traditionally referring to the mitzvoth between man
and God
and carved into the first tablet, contain many words while the next
five
utterances, traditionally the societal mitzvoth, bein adam lachavero
etched on the second tablet, are quite terse? Rabbi Solomon explains
that to
make the two sides equal, Hashem enlarged the letters on the second
tablet so
the “printed”
area of the two
tablets would be equal. Hashem was teaching us that both aspects of
serving
Hashem, the spiritual and the societal, are of equal importance, and
one should
not sacrifice acts of chessed on the altar of “religious
observance.”
The Matnas
Chaim makes another relevant point: We tend to think that we keep
the
mitzvoth bein adam lachavero because they are logical, because
society
would revert to chaos without them. But our reasoning is faulty. Just
as we
observe the laws bein adam laMakom, between man and God, simply
because
they are Hashem’s
wish and command, so are we to be motivated to observe the laws bein
adam
lachavero, for even if their logic eludes us, we must observe them
because
these too are still God’s
will.
In a
similar vein, Rabbi Yaakov Hillel points out in Ascending the Path
that
Many Jews are so punctilious in their observance of laws they deem to
be between
man and God that they will go so far as to examine an etrog with a
magnifying
glass for example, while being much less vigilant in their business
practices.
We must always remember that while Torah study and avodah
(religious
service) comprise two pillars upon which the world is balanced, the
third
pillar is gemilut chasadim, acts of loving kindness between man
and his
fellow man. Unless this third pillar is equally strong, the edifice of
the
world will topple.
Rosh
Hashanah, for which we are preparing in the month of Elul, is the
holiday on
which we coronate Hashem as King over the world. However, if there are
no
subjects there is no sovereign. How can we ensure that Hashem’s
kingdom, we, the
Nation of Israel, remain His emissaries to the world? Rabbi Lugassi
notes that
an integral verse of the High Holidays liturgy is “Hear,
O Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is One.”
Why, asks Rav Lugassi, do we need to “hear”;
would it not be
enough to say, “Know
Israel?”
In
our context, the logic is irrefutable. While knowledge can be
individual,
hearing requires an audience, in our case, a nation of listeners. We
attest as
a nation that we accept Hashem as our God and our King. To do this, we
must
minimize the “I”
for the benefit of
the whole. The spirituality of the individual is inextricably
intertwined with
the spirituality of the
Further, in Moda Labinah, we can rely on the verse from
Deuteronomy
to help us understand this concept: “He
became King over Jeshurun when the numbers of the nation gathered –
the tribes of
Israel in unity.”
In other words, it is the unity of Bnei Yisroel that guarantees the
sovereignty
of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. How can we achieve that unity and prevent
divisiveness?
By practicing “veohavta
lerayacha komocha - loving your fellow Jew as yourself.”
That
level can only be achieved through unity and caring for each other. Rav
Shmuel
Tal explains in Tal Chaim that we achieve this by joining with
the
collective in prayer, not just to pray for ourselves, but also to pray
for the
collective and for individuals within our collective nation. We
contribute to
the collective and offer our services, and do acts of chessed for
individuals
within the community, and thus become part of something greater than
ourselves
from which we and the community all benefit. The collective prayer and
actions
then fuel the energy that powers our personal prayers and needs.
Hashem
wants our prayers, for our voice is pleasing to Him. Rabbi Tzvi Mayer
Silberberg offers an additional, beautiful interpretation to this verse
from
the Hebrew, “Ki
kolech orev umarech noveh.”
When is your voice pleasing? When it contains within it orevut,
caring, responsibility, an intermingling of my personal needs with the
needs of
others. My introspection during this month needs to include how I can
create
unity within my nation, how I can repair relationships, and how I can
contribute to the wellbeing of the community
To
emphasize this point, Moda Labinah cites a lesser know acronym
for the month
of Ilu”l
–
Ish
Lerayehu Umatanot Loevyonim. This key
mitzvah of
Purim, that one Jew should love his fellow Jew and give gifts to the
needy,
these acts of chessed, was what Mordechai foresaw would unify the Jews
and
create the world of (Alu’l)
Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li, I am
for my
Beloved God, and He is to me, the best known acronym for this month’s
name. (I have
changed the English spelling of Elul to conform to the vowels of the
silent
first Hebrew letter.)
Being
sensitive to others, to their emotional, psychological, and spiritual
needs
perhaps even more than to their financial needs is key to this mindset.
We must
love and interact with our fellows as we would love and observe
ourselves, with
a kind eye, writes Rabbi Castle in Live among Friends. He
presents us
with a wonderful analogy. When we look in the mirror and notice a
smudge,
scrubbing the mirror will not remove the dirt on our face. Similarly,
when we
observe a fault in another, we must remove any negative feelings from
our
hearts, because generally it is this “dirt”
within our own
hearts that is sullying our impression of our fellow Jew. When I
correct my
vision, I will see the beauty and value of another.
This
vigilance must extend to being sensitive to the inner world of others
so as not
to cause anyone undue pain. Rabbi Moshe A. Stern cites several
instances from Tana”ch
when the
pain one inflicted caused undue ramifications generations later, even
when the
pain was inflicted totally unintentionally and even in the performance
of the
mitzvah of honoring one’s
parent. The first instance he cites is Yaakov causing Esau to “cry
a loud and
bitter cry”
when Yaakov instead of Esau received Yitzchak’s
blessing, according to his mother’s
instructions. This phraseology is repeated when Mordechai, Yaakov’s
descendant, cries
a “loud
and
bitter cry”
at
the edict against the Jews that Haman, Esau’s
descendant, had promulgated.
A
second
example Rabbi Stern cites is about Menashe, son of Joseph. He followed
his
father’s
instructions
and placed the royal goblet in Binyamin’s
sack, paving the way for Joseph to accuse Benjamin of thievery and
causing the
brothers who were responsible for his safety to rend their garments in
grief.
Even though Menashe was obeying his father, when Bnei Yisroel were
about to
enter Eretz Yisroel, his tribe would be rent in two with one half
staying on
either side of the Jordan though they had not requested any land on
that side.
How many
times are we oblivious to the challenges of others, gloating over the
accomplishments of our children while some in our company remain
childless, or
revel in a job promotion when our friend may be jobless? If we are to
remain
united and whole, we must anticipate the pain of others and train
ourselves to
refrain from any speech or action that may cause pain.
On the
other hand, to maintain a peaceful and loving relationship with others,
one
must be willing to light up one’s
face with a smile upon meeting others. After all, writes Rabbi Lugassi
in Knesset
Yisroel, it was Shammai, the seemingly stern sage, who insisted
that
greeting everyone with a happy countenance is an explicit law in the
Torah. In
this respect, every human being is in need. We all have the need to be
validated with a smile, a verbal embrace, whether it’s
a child, a parent, a colleague or a
friend, or even a passerby on the street. Resolve to smile at others
for a
specific period of time each day and notice how the surrounding energy
improves.
Resolutions for self improvement in the coming year cannot be merely
cosmetic,
but must deal with the foundation of our being, with our emunah,
our
faith. Rabbi Rabinowitz explains the connection between emunah
and our
relationship to others. If we have complete faith in Hakodosh Boruch
Hu, we do
not get angry at someone for not living up to our expectations, for we
realize
that Hashem is in control. Further, we must understand, points out the Matnas
Chaim, that the world of “between
man and his fellow man”
is not a book of rote etiquette, but rather a guide to how Hashem wants
me to
interact with other human beings, and Hashem generally does not want me
to get
angry at others.
However,
with Elul upon us, we do want to strive to improve our service to God.
Along these
lines, Rabbi Wagschall offers some suggestions in Shaarei Elul.
First he
explains that there are two categories of sins, infrequent ones, like
eating
something without rabbinic supervision, and others that are so frequent
we tend
to forget that they’re
even sins, like speaking loshon horo or davening without proper
intent,
arrogance and jealousy. Those in the first category are more easily
fixed than
the sins in the second. However, success must be counted in small
steps. Pick
one category and devote your energy to a small section of time within
that
category, creating a minimum and maximum of effort. For example, if you
choose
to work on your speech, you may resolve not to speak loshon horo
for a
particular time of each day, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. Your resolution
will have
the maximum of one hour while your minimum may be twenty minutes.
Similarly,
you may resolve to daven with the proper intent for one blessing in the
Shemoneh
Esrei, the silent devotion. Your maximum may be one entire blessing
while
your minimum may be just the first and last lines of the blessing.
Year
after year we take on resolutions, often the same ones, without
success. We
fail because we do not include Hashem in our resolution. The purpose of
these
resolutions must be to bring us closer to our Creator, to build the
relationship between myself and my Beloved. To do this, we must make
ourselves
aware of Hashem’s
constant presence in our lives. This awareness teaches us the worth of
every
human being who is also a child of God and worthy of our smile, our
respect,
our prayers on his behalf, and our help. For only as a united people
can we
create the atmosphere where all of Israel can hear, and indeed all the
world
will know that the Lord our God the Lord is One.