Small tidbits and Sparks of wisdom

There are three fundamental questions that should shape the way a Torah Jew thinks about money.

First: What is the purpose of money from a Torah perspective? What are we supposed to do with what we have?

Second: To whom does our money actually belong?

And third, which follows naturally from the first two: What should an economically just Torah society look like?

These questions become particularly important in affluent Orthodox communities. In the aggregate, such communities may be wealthy, but wealth is certainly not evenly distributed. There are people of extraordinary means living alongside families struggling every month simply to maintain what has become the normal communal standard of living.

Poverty is also relative. A family may technically earn considerably more than the average American household and nevertheless experience genuine financial pressure because of tuition, housing, kosher food, Shabbos and Yom Tov, simchos, and the other unavoidable expenses of Orthodox communal life.

The question, therefore, is not simply how wealthy our community is. The deeper question is: What does the Torah expect us to do with that wealth?

The Purpose of Money

From a Torah perspective, the purpose of money is really no different from the purpose of anything else a person possesses.

Everything a person has is ultimately supposed to be used in the service of Hashem.

We sometimes think that our obligations to Hashem end wherever explicit halachah ends. Something is either required, prohibited, or permitted. But something being technically permitted does not mean that its use is spiritually neutral.

Money creates choices. And those choices themselves become part of עבודת ה׳ — the service of Hashem.

The question therefore cannot merely be:

“Am I allowed to spend my money this way?”

A Torah Jew must eventually ask a deeper question:

“What purpose does Hashem expect this money to serve?”

Whose Money Is It?

This brings us to the second and perhaps more fundamental question: Whose money is it?

Legally, a person who earns money honestly owns it. Halachah recognizes private property, contracts, inheritance, commerce, damages, theft, and countless other laws that depend upon genuine ownership.

But hashkafically, there is another layer.

The Torah says concerning the Land of Israel:

כִּי לִי הָאָרֶץ — “For the land is Mine.”
(Vayikra 25:23)

A person can possess property while simultaneously recognizing that ultimate ownership belongs to Hashem.

Dovid HaMelech expresses this extraordinarily clearly when the Jewish people contribute enormous wealth toward the future Beis HaMikdash:

כִּי מִמְּךָ הַכֹּל וּמִיָּדְךָ נָתַנּוּ לָךְ

“For everything is from You, and from Your hand we have given to You.”
(Divrei HaYamim I 29:14)

That sentence contains an entire Torah philosophy of wealth.

We give to Hashem what Hashem first gave to us.

The wealthy person is therefore not merely an owner. He is also, in a profound sense, a trustee.

If someone placed $1 million into your hands as trustee and instructed you that a certain portion was to be distributed to particular beneficiaries, you would never imagine that distributing that money represented extraordinary generosity on your part. You would simply be carrying out the responsibility attached to the money entrusted to you.

That is one way a Torah Jew should understand tzedakah.

When a person has the ability, the classical higher standard of giving is a חומש — one-fifth, not merely מעשר — one-tenth. The underlying idea is powerful: Hashem gave a person resources together with responsibilities concerning those resources.

The question changes from:

“How much of my money must I give away?”

to:

“How does Hashem expect me to administer the money He placed in my hands?”

What Does an Economically Just Torah Society Look Like?

This leads directly to the third question.

The Torah clearly recognizes differences in wealth. It does not demand that everyone possess exactly the same amount. It recognizes rich and poor, employers and workers, lenders and borrowers, landowners and laborers.

Yet the Torah simultaneously constructed an economic system containing powerful mechanisms designed to prevent poverty and wealth from becoming permanently entrenched.

שמיטה — Shemitah, debt cancellation, יובל — Yovel, the return of ancestral land, agricultural gifts to the poor, tzedakah, interest restrictions between Jews, and numerous other mitzvos created a society in which private ownership existed but was never absolute.

The Torah does not abolish wealth.

But neither does it allow wealth to become detached from responsibility.

Exactly how the economic structure of an ancient agricultural society translates into a modern capital-based economy is complicated. There is no simplistic formula. But we cannot therefore ignore the Torah’s underlying message.

It would be deeply disturbing to construct a Torah society economically while simply importing the assumptions of contemporary secular society.

We live within Western culture, and affluent Orthodox communities naturally absorb many of its assumptions. One of those assumptions is that if I earned something legally, it belongs to me absolutely, and therefore what I do with it is fundamentally nobody else’s concern.

That may describe one conception of private property.

It does not adequately describe the Torah conception.

The Forgotten Concept of Kedushah

This leads to one of the greatest challenges created by affluence: materialism.

The Torah’s answer to materialism begins with a concept that is often discussed far too narrowly:

קדושה — kedushah.

The Torah commands:

קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ — “You shall be holy.”
(Vayikra 19:2)

The Ramban famously explains that Torah life cannot be reduced to a technical list of prohibitions. A person could theoretically remain within the technical boundaries of many laws while nevertheless constructing an existence dominated by physical appetite and indulgence.

The Torah demands something more.

Kedushah requires restraint.

Not necessarily asceticism. Judaism does not demand that ordinary people abandon society, reject physical pleasure, or live as monks.

But neither does Judaism teach that every permitted pleasure should therefore be pursued to its maximum.

The human being possesses both physical drives and a spiritual capacity. Kedushah means that the physical serves the spiritual rather than the spiritual becoming the servant of the physical.

That principle applies to food, houses, clothing, automobiles, vacations, celebrations—and money itself.

Tzniyus Is Also an Economic Value

There is another Torah concept that has become unnecessarily narrow in popular discussion:

צניעות — tzniyus.

Tzniyus is frequently discussed almost exclusively in connection with women’s clothing. That is certainly one application, but it is only one small part of a much broader Torah personality.

Tzniyus applies to men and women.

It applies to dress, speech and behavior—but it also applies to wealth.

There is a difference between enjoying something and needing everyone else to know that you enjoyed it.

A person may decide to take an expensive vacation. But another question remains:

Why must everybody see it?

There is a difference between consumption and conspicuous consumption.

The house, automobile, vacation, watch, clothing, simcha and restaurant can become instruments not simply of enjoyment but of signaling:

This is what I have. This is where I belong. This is my status.

That phenomenon does not remain private.

Your Spending Changes Your Neighbor’s Standard

This is where individual consumption becomes a communal matter.

When one wealthy family raises the standard of what constitutes a “normal” bar mitzvah, wedding, vacation, house, car or wardrobe, that family may easily be able to afford it.

But the new standard does not remain inside that family’s bank account.

Other families see it.

Children see it.

Teenagers see it.

Shidduch-age young adults see it.

Eventually yesterday’s luxury becomes today’s expectation.

A family struggling financially may know perfectly well that it cannot afford that standard, yet still feel compelled to approximate it because its children live within the same social environment.

This is why even a person who can afford extravagance should consider what his behavior does to those who cannot.

The question is not merely:

“Can I afford this?”

It is also:

“What happens to my community when people like me normalize this?”

The modern bar mitzvah is an obvious example. In many communities, bar mitzvah celebrations have reached a scale that would once have been associated with weddings.

Why?

Very often there is no meaningful answer except that this has become what people do.

And once enough people do it, everybody else feels the pressure.

Restraint Requires a Community

Kedushah is particularly difficult because Judaism does not advocate escaping society.

We are supposed to build a קהילה קדושה — a holy community.

It is much easier for an individual to practice restraint when everyone around him practices restraint. It becomes enormously harder when the surrounding culture constantly advertises consumption.

That means communal culture matters.

Every family contributes to establishing the definition of “normal.”

Choosing a modest car when one could afford a luxury car, making a dignified but restrained simcha, living in a comfortable rather than ostentatious house, or simply choosing not to publicize every luxury one enjoys may appear to be private decisions.

They are not entirely private.

Collectively, such decisions create a culture.

And the opposite decisions create a culture as well.

The Tuition Crisis Is Different

Materialism can ultimately be addressed by individuals. A person can buy a smaller house. A person can drive a used automobile. A person can take fewer vacations. A person can make a simpler simcha.

Tuition is different.

A Torah education is not a luxury that Orthodox parents can simply decide to eliminate from their budget.

And historically, educating Jewish children was never understood exclusively as the private financial responsibility of whichever parents happened to have children in school that particular year.

Education is a communal obligation.

When a community does not fulfill that responsibility, parents obviously still must do everything possible to educate their children. But that does not transform an underlying communal responsibility into an exclusively parental one.

Yet much of contemporary Orthodox society has adopted essentially the American private-school model.

The school calculates the cost of educating a child and sends the parents a bill.

That model makes sense for an elite private school where attendance is discretionary and families choosing the institution generally possess the means to pay.

It is a deeply problematic model for a religious community in which virtually every family is religiously obligated to educate its children within a Torah framework.

The Public-School Model Contains an Important Lesson

Ironically, the American public-school funding structure contains something much closer to the traditional communal concept.

A homeowner pays school taxes before having children.

He pays while his children attend school.

He continues paying after his children graduate.

Why?

Because society has determined that educating the next generation is not merely the responsibility of today’s parents.

It is a responsibility of the community.

Historically, Jewish communities understood this principle as well. Communities possessed mechanisms for raising communal funds and supporting essential communal institutions.

A Torah community should therefore seriously consider a broad-based model in which supporting Torah education becomes an ordinary obligation of communal membership rather than a massive bill imposed primarily upon parents during the twenty years when they happen to be raising children.

The precise mechanism is a practical question.

The principle comes first.

What Tuition Does to Our Children

The consequences of the present system extend far beyond bank accounts.

Consider a family with four children paying substantial yeshiva tuition.

The parents do not merely need to earn the amount appearing on the tuition statement. They need to earn enough pre-tax income to have that amount remaining after taxes, while simultaneously paying for housing, food, insurance, transportation, Yom Tov, healthcare and every other expense of family life.

This can require an extraordinary amount of additional annual income.

And that economic reality eventually determines what our children believe they are permitted to become.

A young person may love teaching.

Another might want to become a professor.

Another might choose research.

Another might want to enter some useful but moderately compensated profession.

But eventually the calculation appears:

How am I going to pay tuition for four children?

The community has unintentionally created an economic system that narrows the range of viable professions available to its own children.

That is not merely a financial problem.

It changes the character of the community itself.

Money as a Trust

Ultimately, all three questions return to one principle.

What is money for?

עבודת ה׳ — serving Hashem.

Whose money is it?

Legally it belongs to the individual, but ultimately:

כִּי מִמְּךָ הַכֹּל — “Everything is from You.”

And what should an economically just Torah society look like?

Not necessarily a society in which everybody possesses the same amount, but a society in which wealth never loses its connection to responsibility.

A wealthy person does not need to apologize for being wealthy. Wealth can accomplish extraordinary things.

But Torah wealth carries obligations.

It demands צדקה — tzedakah, קדושה — restraint and holiness, and צניעות — modesty rather than display.

It requires us to consider not merely whether we can afford something, but what our choices communicate and what standards they create for everyone around us.

And above all, it requires remembering that money is not simply something we accumulated.

It is something entrusted to us.

Dovid HaMelech expressed the entire philosophy in a few words:

כִּי מִמְּךָ הַכֹּל וּמִיָּדְךָ נָתַנּוּ לָךְ

“For everything is from You, and from Your hand we have given to You.”

Once money is understood that way, the question is no longer simply how much am I entitled to keep?

The deeper question becomes:

What does Hashem expect me to accomplish with what He has placed in my hands?

The mystery of the Creator is בחירה חפשית — free choice. Free choice stands at the zenith of Creation because Gd needs nothing. Creation did not come into existence because the Creator lacked something or required something from man. Gd created the heavens, the stars, the moon, the planets, the animals, and finally the human being. But within the human being He placed something fundamentally different: the ability to choose.

This immediately raises an important question. Why did Gd create a world filled with such enormous differences?

Human beings do not have the same appearance, height, weight, intelligence, abilities, temperament, circumstances, or opportunities. The animal world itself contains countless different creatures. The entire physical Creation is built upon differences. Even where two human beings appear almost identical, they are not truly identical.

If everyone had been created completely uniform—the same height, appearance, intelligence, personality, abilities, and circumstances—an essential dimension of human choice would disappear. Instead, every person enters this world as a particular and unique creation and must exercise free choice from within that particular existence.

This creates one of the fundamental struggles of man.

A person can spend his life wishing to be someone other than the person Gd created. The short person wants to be tall. The tall person may want to be shorter. The heavy person wants to be thin. Another person wants someone else’s appearance, intelligence, personality, wealth, family, abilities, or position.

There is, however, a difference between improving oneself and rejecting the fundamental reality of oneself. Man is required to grow, correct himself, and use his free choice. But if he cannot positively accept the basic reality of who he is, he may fail to recognize the particular position from which Gd intended him to exercise that choice.

Every human being is extraordinarily individual. Fingerprints demonstrate this physically. Even identical twins do not have identical fingerprints. The same is true of patterns within the human eye and other identifying characteristics. Two people may appear remarkably similar, yet each remains individually identifiable.

And yet there is an apparent contradiction.

While every human being is unique, the fundamental needs of human beings are remarkably similar. People require food, shelter, security, relationships, dignity, purpose, and belonging. The individual therefore exists simultaneously as a completely unique creation and as a member of humanity.

The same structure exists spiritually.

The Torah establishes common rules. The same Torah and the same fundamental obligations apply to the Jewish people, yet the individuals receiving those obligations are completely different from one another. Uniformity of obligation does not require uniformity of personality.

Therefore, individuality does not mean isolation.

A human being must recognize that he belongs first to the larger body of humanity and then to the particular nation of which he is a part. For the Jew, that nation is עם ישראל — Am Yisrael.

The individual therefore exists within several realities simultaneously. He is a human being sharing the fundamental needs of mankind. He is a member of his nation. And at the same time, he remains an individual creation unlike any other person who has ever existed.

The mystery of free choice exists precisely within this combination: universal rules applied to completely unique individuals.

The Torah does not erase individuality. It provides the framework within which individuality operates. Every Jew receives the same Torah, but no two Jews encounter that Torah with precisely the same circumstances, abilities, struggles, opportunities, or personality.

A person is therefore not being asked to make the choices of another human being. He is being asked to make the choices placed before him, within the particular existence that Gd gave him.

The Cycle of Creation and the Jewish Holidays

This structure can also be seen in the cycle of the Jewish holidays, particularly in the progression from ראש השנה — Rosh Hashanah through שמיני עצרת — Shemini Atzeres and שמחת תורה — Simchas Torah.

Rosh Hashanah occupies a particularly mysterious position.

Unlike the other major holidays, the Torah does not openly identify Rosh Hashanah by the name by which we know it, nor does it explicitly describe its complete purpose. The Torah calls it זכרון תרועה — “a remembrance of the sounding” and יום תרועה — “a day of sounding.” It occurs on the first day of the seventh month, when the moon is concealed or barely visible. Its deeper purpose is itself somewhat concealed.

But the process begins with recognition.

Rosh Hashanah confronts the Jew with the most fundamental question: Who is the Boss?

Who created the world? Who rules it? To whom does man’s ultimate allegiance belong?

Before repentance, cleansing, forgiveness, or celebration can have meaning, there must first be recognition of authority. A person must recognize that he did not create himself, does not ultimately control the world, and is not the final authority over his existence.

The first stage is therefore מלכות — Kingship: recognition of Gd as King.

Once that recognition has been established, the next stage becomes possible.

That stage is יום כיפור — Yom Kippur.

After man recognizes the King, the King, in His kindness, provides the possibility of cleansing. The mistakes accumulated through the exercise of free choice do not necessarily have to determine the future. Through repentance and Yom Kippur, the Jew is given the possibility of beginning again with a clean slate.

There is therefore a definite order.

First comes Rosh Hashanah: recognition of the King.

Then comes Yom Kippur: cleansing before the King.

Only afterward comes סוכות — Sukkos: celebration with the King.

The Jew who has passed through recognition and cleansing can now enter the period of joy. Sukkos follows directly from the spiritual process that began on Rosh Hashanah. Recognition produces responsibility. Responsibility makes repentance necessary. Cleansing then makes possible a different level of closeness and celebration.

But the process does not end with the seven days of Sukkos.

Something unusual follows: שמיני עצרת — Shemini Atzeres, the Eighth Day.

Seven and Eight

The number seven represents the structure of the natural world.

There are seven days of Creation. There are seven days in the week. Human existence continuously revolves around this seven-day structure. Seven represents the completed natural cycle—the physical framework within which human beings live.

But then comes eight.

Eight is beyond seven.

The eighth day points beyond the ordinary physical structure of nature toward a reality that cannot be completely contained within it.

This is precisely where שמחת תורה — Simchas Torah enters.

On Simchas Torah, the Jewish people take the Torah and dance with it. This celebration expresses something fundamental: everything described until this point is possible only because there is a Torah.

Without Torah, how would man properly recognize the King?

How would he understand the purpose of free choice?

How would he know what constitutes a correct choice and what constitutes an incorrect choice?

How would he understand repentance, cleansing, closeness, or his relationship with the Creator?

It is all contained within תורה — Torah.

Torah means teaching and instruction. It provides the framework through which a physical human being can relate to a reality beyond the physical.

The Creator cannot be reduced to physical observation. Man, however, lives within a physical world and understands reality through physical senses and concepts. Torah therefore provides the teachings through which man can recognize and relate to something that exists beyond those limitations.

This is the significance of the eighth day.

Man lives within seven. He lives within Creation, time, space, physical needs, limitations, and nature.

But Torah connects him to eight.

The physical world is not necessarily the ultimate reality. The physical is the visible product of an underlying spiritual reality—whatever that spiritual reality ultimately means beyond the limitations of human physical understanding.

The Torah becomes the connection between those two dimensions.

This is why the progression of the holidays forms one continuous structure:

ראש השנה — Rosh Hashanah: recognition of the King.

יום כיפור — Yom Kippur: cleansing and the opportunity to correct the consequences of free choice.

סוכות — Sukkos: joy and closeness following that cleansing.

שמיני עצרת — Shemini Atzeres: the eighth day, beyond the completed seven-day natural cycle.

שמחת תורה — Simchas Torah: celebration of the Torah itself, through which the entire process becomes possible.

The Jew therefore dances with the Torah.

It is not merely a celebration that another annual cycle of Torah reading has been completed. It is a celebration of the Torah through which the Jew can recognize the Creator, understand his obligations, exercise free choice, correct himself after failure, and connect his individual physical existence to a reality beyond the physical world.

The same person who began as a completely unique creation—with his own appearance, abilities, limitations, struggles, circumstances, and choices—is nevertheless connected through one Torah to עם ישראל, and through that Torah to the Creator.

Every individual is different.

The Torah is one.

The obligations provide the common structure, while free choice belongs to each individual.

Seven represents the world in which that choice takes place.

Eight represents what lies beyond it.

And Torah is the connection between the two.

Torah study occupies a unique position among all the mitzvos. Even if a person were to observe all 613 mitzvos with complete perfection and proper intention, the kedushah and spiritual light brought upon him through those mitzvos cannot be compared to the kedushah and splendor of the Torah that rests upon a person who immerses himself in Torah lishmah.
The source of Torah in kedushah is infinitely higher than the root of all the mitzvos combined. The Mishnah in Avos 6:1 expresses this idea:
רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר, כָּל הָעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה לִשְׁמָהּ, זוֹכֶה לִדְבָרִים הַרְבֵּה… וּמְגַדַּלְתּוֹ וּמְרוֹמַמְתּוֹ עַל כָּל הַמַּעֲשִׂים.
“Rabbi Meir says: Whoever occupies himself with Torah for its own sake merits many things… and it makes him great and exalts him above all deeds.”
This refers to Torah elevating a person above what can be achieved through all the other mitzvos combined. Similarly, the Yerushalmi, Pei’ah 1:1, teaches:
וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנֶגֶד כֻּלָּם
“And Torah study is equivalent to them all.”
The Mitzvah Is a Lamp; Torah Is the Light
There is another fundamental distinction between Torah and the other mitzvos. The kedushah and spiritual light associated with a mitzvah rest upon the object used to perform the mitzvah only for the duration of its performance. Once the mitzvah has been completed, that particular kedushah and light depart.
Torah is different. A place or object upon which the light of Torah has rested retains a sanctity because of its association with Torah.
The Gemara in Megillah 26b expresses the distinction:
תַּשְׁמִישֵׁי מִצְוָה נִזְרָקִין, תַּשְׁמִישֵׁי קְדוּשָּׁה נִגְנָזִין.
“Objects used for the performance of a mitzvah may be discarded; objects that serve sacred items must be put away.”
The Gemara gives examples of items that serve kedushah, including cases for sifrei Torah, tefillin, and mezuzos. Because these objects served the written words of Torah, their relationship with kedushah continues even afterward.
This distinction is reflected in Mishlei 6:23:
כִּי נֵר מִצְוָה וְתוֹרָה אוֹר
“For a mitzvah is a lamp, and Torah is light.”
A lamp is not itself the light. It is the vessel that holds and supports the flame. In the same manner, the mitzvos derive their spiritual life, kedushah, and illumination from Torah. A mitzvah receives its spiritual power from the letters and words of Torah that define and command that particular mitzvah. Torah itself, however, is described as the אוֹר — light.
Torah Study by a Person Who Is Spiritually Unworthy
This extraordinary quality of Torah also creates what appears to be a contradiction.
A person may be spiritually unworthy and therefore incapable of receiving the higher spiritual Influence that Torah normally transmits. Tehillim 50:16 states:
וְלָרָשָׁע אָמַר אֱלֹקִים מַה לְּךָ לְסַפֵּר חֻקָּי וַתִּשָּׂא בְרִיתִי עֲלֵי פִיךָ
“But to the wicked, Gd said: What right have you to recount My statutes and bear My covenant upon your mouth?”
Our Sages likewise teach that teaching Torah to an unworthy student is compared to casting a stone in the worship of Mercury. When a person is spiritually unworthy, his Torah study cannot draw down the full spiritual Influence that Torah is capable of transmitting.
Nevertheless, our Sages reveal an extraordinary principle: even such a person must not abandon Torah study.
Even when the individual is presently incapable of receiving the full spiritual Influence of Torah, the words of Torah themselves remain intrinsically holy. By continuously occupying himself with Torah, he repeatedly receives at least a small measure of spiritual awakening from its holiness.
Each individual exposure may be only the faintest shadow of the true illumination that Torah can provide. But through constant repetition, that small spiritual effect is reinforced again and again. Eventually, its accumulated influence can overcome the person’s present spiritual condition and return him toward good.
This is expressed in the teaching of Chazal:
הַלְוַאי אוֹתִי עָזְבוּ וְתוֹרָתִי שָׁמָרוּ, שֶׁהַמָּאוֹר שֶׁבָּהּ מַחֲזִירָן לְמוּטָב.
“If only they had forsaken Me but kept My Torah, for the Light within it would return them to the good.”
The critical expression is:
הַמָּאוֹר שֶׁבָּהּ — “the Light within it.”
The power is inherent within Torah itself. Even when the person studying has not yet corrected himself, Torah possesses an intrinsic kedushah capable of gradually affecting someone who continues to engage with it.
Seriousness and Intellectual Honesty
There is, however, an essential condition.
This principle does not apply when Torah is approached with mockery, contempt, or frivolity. Nor does it apply when a person deliberately distorts the Torah’s true meaning.
Even someone who is presently spiritually distant must approach Torah seriously and with intellectual honesty. He must attempt to understand what Torah is actually saying rather than forcing Torah to say what he has already decided it should say.
Thus, two separate levels emerge.
A person who is spiritually deficient but studies Torah sincerely can still be affected by the inherent מאור שבתורה — Light within Torah. Continued sincere study can gradually change him and ultimately return him toward good.
But when a person purifies and sanctifies himself before learning, an entirely different level becomes possible. His Torah study can then transmit spiritual Influence according to the degree of his preparation. The greater his preparation, the greater the value and power of his Torah study.
Torah therefore possesses two distinct powers. At its highest level, תורה לשמה — Torah studied for its own sake brings a kedushah and spiritual illumination surpassing all the other mitzvos combined. Yet even when a person remains spiritually distant, sincere and intellectually honest Torah study contains within itself המאור שבה, the inherent Light capable of gradually transforming the person who continues to engage with it.

There appears to be a recurring correlation between the psychology of individuals or groups who feel oppressed, humiliated, deprived, rejected, or denied the dignity they believe they deserve and the way some of them behave when they eventually acquire substantial power.

The original grievance may be real or perceived. It may arise from poverty, discrimination, political exclusion, ethnic history, the experience of one’s family or tribe, social rejection, or simply the conviction that other people received wealth, opportunities, recognition, or respect that should have belonged to them. Over time, the grievance can cease being merely something that happened to a person or community and become part of its identity.

The critical point comes when such individuals or movements acquire power over large numbers of people. Instead of correcting a specific injustice, they may attempt to reconstruct society according to their own definition of justice. They begin deciding who represents good, who represents evil, who deserves punishment, and what must be eliminated to make society right. In effect, human beings begin assuming an authority that belongs to Gd, the Creator.

Revenge can consequently be transformed into something that appears morally righteous. The individual no longer considers himself vengeful. In his own mind, he is eliminating evil and correcting history. Once another population has been defined as fundamentally evil rather than simply as a competitor or opponent, almost anything done against that population can be presented as necessary for the greater good.

This phenomenon is neither exclusively secular nor exclusively religious. Nationalism, race, class, revolutionary politics, and religion can all provide an ideological framework through which resentment becomes a supposed moral mission.

Security, Wealth, and the Desire to Preserve

There is an important contrast with people who grow up surrounded by substantial family wealth, security, comfort, and dignity. They may recognize that others possess far greater wealth, but they nevertheless possess a basic sense of security. They have something substantial to preserve. Their instinct may therefore be preservation rather than destruction of the existing order.

A wealthy Muslim sheikh, for example, can possess strong religious convictions while having little interest in revolutionary warfare that could destroy his wealth, family structure, position, and society. By contrast, a refugee or impoverished individual who believes that the existing system has provided him with nothing may have considerably less attachment to preserving that system and may therefore be more susceptible to a revolutionary or radical message.

This does not mean that poverty produces extremism or that wealth prevents it. The point is that grievance can become powerful political material when an ideology provides an explanation for that grievance, identifies someone responsible for it, and promises a new order in which the perceived injustice will finally be corrected.

When Grievance and Absolutist Ideology Combine

The particularly dangerous combination develops when deep social or economic grievance joins an absolutist ideology that portrays opposing groups as obstacles to a supposedly perfect political, social, or divinely ordained order.

Economic deprivation, humiliation, lack of opportunity, resentment toward wealthier classes, or the belief that society deliberately kept one’s group down can create an enormous reservoir of anger. By itself, however, resentment does not necessarily produce organized destruction. It becomes considerably more dangerous when an ideology gives that resentment an explanation, identifies an enemy, and supplies a moral justification for defeating that enemy.

This is where otherwise radically different movements can develop a similar psychological structure. Revolutionary socialism or communism can identify economic classes as oppressors whose power must be destroyed to create a supposedly just society. Extremist religious movements can identify unbelievers, rival religious groups, insufficiently observant members of their own religion, or political opponents as obstacles to the religious order they believe must prevail.

Certain radical Sunni, Salafi-jihadist, Wahhabi-influenced, and Shiite Islamist movements demonstrate how religious absolutism can combine with political grievance and revolutionary organization. Sunni and Shiite Muslims as entire populations cannot accurately be equated with such extremist movements. The destructive mechanism arises when a particular ideology demands supremacy and legitimizes coercion or violence against those who refuse to accept it.

The secular revolutionary and the religious extremist may completely disagree about Gd, religion, economics, and the purpose of existence while nevertheless following a similar mechanism:

Grievance identifies the injustice.

Dogma identifies the enemy.

Organization mobilizes the followers.

Power provides the means to impose the ideology.

Nazi Germany and the Transformation of Grievance

Nazi Germany provides one of history’s most catastrophic examples of transforming grievance into an ideology of destruction.

Adolf Hitler came from an unstable and largely unsuccessful background, experienced personal rejection, served as a soldier during the First World War, and remained politically insignificant until discovering his effectiveness as a political speaker and propagandist. He became involved with a small political movement and eventually helped transform it into a movement capable of controlling Germany.

The Nazis constructed an explanation for Germany’s humiliation following the First World War and identified populations supposedly responsible for the country’s problems, particularly the Jews. Jews were eventually characterized not merely as political, religious, or economic competitors but as an existential source of evil.

That distinction was critical. Once another population becomes evil itself, persecution can be presented as purification. Revenge becomes justice. Destruction becomes self-defense.

The result was dictatorship, genocide, world war, and destruction on an almost unimaginable scale.

Rwanda: When the Neighbor Becomes the Enemy

The 1994 Rwandan genocide provides another extreme example of what can happen when historical grievance, ethnic identity, propaganda, fear, and political power converge.

The historical relationship between Hutu and Tutsi was complicated and was significantly reshaped during European colonial rule. Nevertheless, extremist Hutu political forces were eventually able to portray Tutsi civilians as an existential enemy. Political propaganda transformed resentment and fear into justification for mass violence.

Once the enemy was sufficiently dehumanized, ordinary moral limitations collapsed. Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutus were murdered on an enormous scale while the international community catastrophically failed to intervene effectively.

Again, the mechanism was greater than simple hatred. Perpetrators could be persuaded that destroying another population was necessary for their own survival and for correcting what they regarded as historical injustice.

The oppressed or supposedly oppressed person could therefore become the oppressor while continuing to consider himself the victim.

Religious Absolutism and Political Power

The problem becomes particularly serious when grievance combines with religious absolutism because the believer may understand his political position not merely as personal opinion but as an obligation originating from Gd.

Within Islamic history there have been different interpretations concerning warfare, unbelievers, apostasy, relations with Jews and Christians, Islamic political authority, and the application of Sharia. Certain fundamentalist and Islamist movements interpret religious texts and traditions as requiring a political and religious order fundamentally different from the secular liberal systems of Europe and America.

That does not mean every Muslim accepts such interpretations. They plainly do not. Nor can a particular percentage of Muslims holding violent or supremacist positions be asserted without defining the population, country, question, and reliable survey being cited.

The relevant question is narrower: what happens when a committed ideological minority believes that its religious understanding represents absolute truth, considers competing systems morally illegitimate, and subsequently acquires sufficient political or institutional power to advance its objectives?

A community that previously considered itself marginalized may use the freedoms of a democratic society to acquire education, wealth, businesses, political organization, votes, government positions, and institutional influence. All those activities are legitimate. The concern begins where particular organizations or individuals simultaneously maintain an extremist ideology and obtain increasing ability to impose that ideology upon others.

The issue is therefore not Muslim participation in Western society. It is the potential combination of grievance, religious or political absolutism, identification of an enemy, and sufficient power to impose one’s beliefs.

The Refugee Dilemma

Helping refugees escaping Muslim-majority countries can be a noble humanitarian cause. People may be fleeing civil war, political persecution, sectarian violence, religious extremism, governments, or militias threatening their lives.

Giving temporary protection to someone facing persecution or death, however, is one question. Permanently resettling large populations in an entirely different civilization is another question, with consequences extending far beyond the original humanitarian emergency.

The difficulty arises when refugees rescued from dangerous circumstances settle permanently in non-Muslim European countries and portions of those populations eventually view the established society not primarily as the civilization that provided them refuge, but as another political arena in which religious, cultural, and political demands can be pursued.

European societies possess institutions, property, political traditions, laws, cultures, and accumulated wealth created over generations. A refugee or immigrant naturally receives whatever legal protections and rights the law of the host country grants him. But humanitarian protection does not logically require the established population to surrender its history, laws, religion, culture, or national identity in response to every demand made by newcomers.

The situation becomes considerably more complicated if conflicts and ideologies originating in the homeland are transplanted into the host country. Religious ideology can then provide a vocabulary through which political demands are presented as questions of discrimination, oppression, morality, or religious rights.

Where genuinely radical elements exist, the paradox becomes particularly significant: the tolerance and political freedoms of the host country can themselves provide the mechanisms through which an intolerant movement organizes and acquires influence.

This exposes an inherent difficulty in refugee policy. Refuge from immediate danger and permanent mass resettlement are not necessarily the same policy. If the original danger eventually disappears but return to the homeland never occurs, humanitarian protection has effectively developed into permanent demographic and political migration.

The situation can be compared to introducing a new population into an established ecological environment without sufficiently considering how the populations will interact. Compassion toward the population being introduced does not eliminate the responsibility to consider the existing population and the long-term stability of the environment.

A society can therefore recognize a humanitarian responsibility toward persecuted people while simultaneously asking what responsibilities refugees have toward the country that received them, whether genuine integration is occurring, whether the host country’s laws and institutions are respected, and whether eventual return should remain an objective when conditions in the country of origin become genuinely safe.

Wealth, Opportunity, and Political Gratitude

A related question arises when previously poor or displaced populations acquire substantial economic and political opportunities in Western countries.

The democratic system may provide education, public assistance, business opportunities, legal protection, property rights, political participation, and eventually considerable wealth. The question is what happens afterward.

For many immigrants, the result is integration and attachment to the country that provided those opportunities. But where a grievance-based ideology remains powerful, prosperity does not necessarily eliminate resentment. Political success can instead provide greater resources through which old ideological conflicts are continued in a new environment.

This distinction matters when examining Muslim communities in the United States, including communities in Michigan. If particular politicians, organizations, religious leaders, businesses, or institutions engage in antisemitism, corruption, exploitation of government programs, or extremist political activity, those actions should be identified specifically and judged according to evidence.

The significant issue is whether specific people who acquire wealth and political influence through an open democratic society subsequently use that influence to attack the principles, institutions, Jews, Christians, or other populations they regard as standing in their way.

The Ponzi-Scheme Structure of Ideological Power

An anecdotal comparison can be made between the structure of militant political or religious movements and a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme promises investors returns that are supposedly being generated by successful investments. In reality, the early investors may be paid with money supplied by later investors. Being early can therefore appear extraordinarily profitable. The apparent success of the early participants then becomes part of the advertisement used to recruit the next group.

A comparable incentive structure can develop inside an ideological movement, although the investment is not necessarily financial.

The early follower invests loyalty, obedience, time, reputation, personal relationships, and sometimes considerable personal risk in an ideologue who promises a new political, economic, social, or religious order. If the movement remains insignificant, the investment produces very little. If the movement succeeds, however, its earliest and most loyal participants are frequently positioned to become officials, administrators, commanders, ideological authorities, clergy, political leaders, or beneficiaries of the new establishment.

Being early can therefore have enormous value.

An early Nazi Party member who demonstrated sufficient loyalty could potentially rise with the movement as it accumulated power. The same structural principle appeared in revolutionary communist movements, where people who joined, organized, and demonstrated ideological reliability before victory could become members of the new ruling establishment.

A comparable mechanism can occur inside religious or social institutions without suggesting that religion itself is a Ponzi scheme. Whenever a person reaches the upper levels of a powerful institutional hierarchy, he may acquire influence over appointments, money, education, social standing, membership, political access, and the interpretation or enforcement of institutional rules.

The analogy is therefore structural rather than literal.

The masses entering later provide numbers. Those numbers provide legitimacy. The organization provides discipline. The ideological authorities provide justification. The people at the top control the direction of the movement.

As the base becomes larger, the position of those already near the top becomes increasingly valuable.

There is also a psychological investment. Once someone has devoted twenty or thirty years to an ideology, abandoning it becomes extraordinarily difficult. Questioning the movement can mean admitting that decades of sacrifice, loyalty, and personal identity were invested in something false or corrupt. Personal interest and ideological conviction can therefore become inseparable.

At its extreme, the movement develops into a pyramid of power.

The masses at the bottom supply manpower, money, votes, demonstrations, obedience, or military force. The organizers above them administer those resources. The ideological authorities explain why the system is morally necessary. The leadership determines where the entire structure will move.

The remarkable contradiction is that an ideology can publicly promise equality, justice, liberation, religious purity, or the destruction of oppression while simultaneously constructing a new privileged hierarchy.

The revolutionary who promised to eliminate privilege becomes privileged.

The movement that promised to destroy an abusive hierarchy constructs another hierarchy.

The person who promised to liberate ordinary people acquires precisely the power over those people that the movement originally condemned.

The Recurring Pattern

The broader phenomenon therefore extends far beyond any particular religion, race, nation, or historical period.

A person or group begins with the belief that it has been denied what it deserves.

The grievance becomes an identity.

The identity develops an explanation for who caused the injustice.

An ideology identifies the enemy.

The ideology supplies moral justification.

Organization mobilizes the masses.

The earliest and most committed participants rise within the organization.

The expanding movement rewards those positioned above the growing base.

Power finally supplies the ability to act.

At that point, the original demand for dignity, justice, equality, liberation, or religious righteousness can become something entirely different.

The person who once complained of oppression can become the oppressor. The movement that demanded tolerance can become intolerant of its opponents. The revolutionary who condemned privilege can become a member of a new privileged class. The individual who once complained that others unfairly judged him can eventually appoint himself the judge of everyone else.

The most dangerous stage arrives when revenge is no longer recognized as revenge. It has been renamed justice. The opponent is no longer regarded as another human being with whom there is a disagreement; he has become the embodiment of evil.

This is the particularly destructive combination: grievance, absolute ideological certainty, organizational hierarchy, personal incentives, and political power. Whether the ideology presents itself as racial, nationalist, socialist, communist, or religious, the mechanism can become remarkably similar.

Once human beings convince themselves that they possess the absolute definition of good and evil and simultaneously obtain sufficient power to enforce that definition, they can begin behaving as though they have assumed the authority of Gd, the Creator—deciding who deserves protection, who deserves punishment, and ultimately who deserves to exist.

Conclusion: Never Underestimate the Marginalized Individual

The conclusion is that history repeatedly warns us not to underestimate the forgotten individual, the humiliated person, the rejected outsider, or the small group that believes it has been abused and pushed aside. A seemingly insignificant grievance can remain buried for years and eventually become the beginning of something enormously destructive when it finds ideology, organization, followers, and power.

This principle applies on every level: country to country, group to group, community to community, and ultimately human being to human being.

A society should therefore be extremely careful about unnecessarily marginalizing people or creating groups that believe they have no dignity, opportunity, or place within the larger society. Where people can legitimately be helped, they should be helped with kindness and dignity, even when their beliefs, culture, politics, or ideology are different from our own, provided that they are not physically or spiritually threatening others.

The same obligation exists on the smallest scale. Be a decent neighbor. Treat another human being with dignity. Do not unnecessarily humiliate the weak person simply because he lacks the ability to answer back. Do not assume that because someone is presently insignificant, powerless, unpopular, unsuccessful, or rejected, he will always remain that way.

History contains individuals who rose from obscurity or rejection to extraordinary power. Napoleon and Hitler were not born commanding nations. Hitler in particular spent years as an obscure and unsuccessful man before circumstances, political skill, ideology, and mass organization eventually placed enormous power in his hands. This does not mean that every rejected individual becomes dangerous. Obviously, almost none do. The point is that nobody can know beforehand what abilities, opportunities, circumstances, or followers a seemingly insignificant person may eventually acquire.

Even when someone deserves rejection because of his conduct, there remains a difference between stopping unacceptable behavior and unnecessarily humiliating the human being. Necessary boundaries do not require unnecessary cruelty.

A tiny scratch in a great structure may initially appear meaningless. A small crack in a massive wall may appear incapable of threatening anything. But if pressure repeatedly enters that crack, if water freezes inside it, if the foundation shifts, and if nobody repairs it, the crack can expand until something vastly larger begins to break.

Human resentment can operate in a similar way.

The humiliation may originally involve one person. The grievance may initially belong to a tiny group. The movement may begin with ten people sitting in an insignificant room. Yet grievance can attract ideology; ideology can attract followers; followers can create organization; organization can acquire power; and power can eventually shake an entire country.

The lesson is therefore not to surrender to every grievance or appease every ideology. Dangerous beliefs must still be opposed, and people who threaten others must still be restrained. Rather, the lesson is not to manufacture enemies unnecessarily.

Where kindness is possible, use kindness. Where dignity can be preserved, preserve it. Where a lonely or marginalized person can be brought into society without endangering others, bring him in. Where disagreement is necessary, disagree without needless humiliation.

A great destructive force does not always begin as a great destructive force. Sometimes it begins as a small crack that everyone considered too insignificant to notice.

A person may recognize that his actions are wrong and may even sincerely intend to change, yet convince himself that there will be time later. He imagines that he can first satisfy his desires, have his fill of them, and afterward withdraw from sin and return to Gd.
The Duties of the Heart, The Gate of Repentance, Chapter 7, warns against precisely this calculation. A person imagines that he will draw away from sin after first fulfilling his desire for it and having his fill of it. In doing so, he imagines that he can fool the Almighty, as it were. He wants both worlds: first the sin, and afterward the repentance.
Our Masters, of blessed memory, described this attitude clearly:
“He who says, ‘I will sin and repent, sin and repent,’ will be given no chance to repent.” — Yoma 85b
The problem is therefore not merely the individual act of sin. The person has incorporated repentance itself into his calculation. Teshuvah, which was given as the means of returning to Gd, becomes part of the justification that allows him to continue doing what he knows is wrong. He tells himself that there will always be another opportunity to correct what he is doing today.
But tomorrow does not belong to man.
The Admonition at the end of the book expresses this directly:
My soul, make provisions abundantly, not meagerly,
While you still are alive and able;
For a long journey lies ahead of you.
The opportunity to make provisions exists specifically while a person is alive and able to act. Whatever must be repaired, corrected, returned, abandoned, or accomplished belongs to the present world and to the present opportunity.
The warning therefore continues:
Do not say, “Tomorrow I will make provisions”;
For today is gone,
And you do not know what the morrow may bring.
Realize that yesterday will never return,
And that all that you did then
Is weighed, counted, and appraised.
Yesterday cannot be lived again. Once the day has passed, the actions performed during that day have entered the accounting of a person’s life. They are “weighed, counted, and appraised.” Tomorrow, meanwhile, remains unknown. The only period actually placed into a person’s hands is the present.
For this reason, the author continues with an even stronger warning:
Do not say, “Tomorrow I will act”;
For the day of death is hidden from all who live.
Hasten to do each day the appointed task,
For death, at any time, may send its arrow and bolt.
A person does not know the length of his life. He therefore cannot build his repentance upon an assumption that a particular tomorrow will arrive. The appointed work of each day belongs to that day.
The chapter concludes:
Do not delay doing the prescribed work of each day;
For as a bird wanders from its nest,
So must man wander from his place.
This is the final warning of The Gate of Repentance, Chapter 7. Repentance cannot safely be assigned to some future period after a person has finished pursuing what he presently desires. Today disappears, yesterday never returns, tomorrow is unknown, and the day on which a person must leave this world remains hidden from him. Therefore, the work that belongs to today must be done today.

The Torah describes a particular danger that arises after a person has heard the words of Hashem’s covenant. This is not someone who never heard the covenant or does not know what the Torah demands. The verse specifically describes a person who hears the words of the covenant, but then begins an internal process through which he convinces himself that he can reinterpret, change, add to, subtract from, or reshape what he has heard according to his own ideas and desires, while still expecting that everything will remain well with him.
וְהָיָה בְּשָׁמְעוֹ אֶת דִּבְרֵי הָאָלָה הַזֹּאת — “And it shall be, when he hears the words of this oath.”
The commentaries explain the individual expressions used by the Torah to describe this process.
1. וְהִתְבָּרֵךְ בִּלְבָבוֹ — “He Will Bless Himself in His Heart”
Saadia understands וְהִתְבָּרֵךְ — Vehitbarekh as “rationalize.” Literally, וְהִתְבָּרֵךְ בִּלְבָבוֹ — Vehitbarekh bilvavo means that he “blesses himself in his heart” (Lekach Tov; Yehudah HaLevi cited by Ibn Ezra; Chizzkuni; Sforno). Other explanations include “conclude” (Targum; Ibn Janach), “give up hope” (Targum Yonathan), “think that he will have blessing” (Rashi), or “flatter himself” (Septuagint).
The person has heard what Hashem said, but he begins reasoning within himself and develops his own explanation of why the words he has heard do not have to govern him exactly as they were given.
2. שָׁלוֹם יִהְיֶה לִּי — “I Will Have Peace”
After rationalizing, the person reaches his conclusion:
שָׁלוֹם יִהְיֶה לִּי — Shalom yihyeh li — “I will have peace.”
Rashi explains that he tells himself that the curses will not come upon him and that nevertheless he will have peace. He does not necessarily deny that the covenant exists. Rather, he convinces himself that he can depart from its requirements while remaining protected from its consequences.
3. כִּי בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי אֵלֵךְ — “I Will Walk According to the Vision of My Own Heart”
The Torah then identifies the basis of his reasoning:
כִּי בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי אֵלֵךְ — Ki bishrirut libi elekh — “For I will walk according to the vision of my own heart.”
Rashi understands בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי — bishrirut libi as what his own heart sees fit to do. Targum and Ibn Janach explain it as “follow my own ideas.” Targum Yonathan and Saadia understand it as “follow my heart’s desires.” Lekach Tov gives “remain free in my heart” and “maintain my strong position.” Ramban explains it as following one’s stubborn desires. Sforno explains it as annulling the matter within one’s heart. The Septuagint renders it as “follow my own error.”
The covenant has been heard, but the person now makes his own heart, ideas, desires, and judgment the standard according to which he will walk.
4. לְמַעַן סְפוֹת — “To Add, Join, Destroy, Annul, or Water”
The Torah continues:
לְמַעַן סְפוֹת — Lemaan sefot.
Targum, Rashi, Radak, Sherashim, and Ramban understand סְפוֹת — sefot as “add.” Yehudah HaLevi cited by Ibn Ezra, Ibn Janach, Chizzkuni, and the Septuagint understand it as “destroy.” Ibn Ezra also gives “annul,” Abarbanel gives “water,” and Rashi, citing Sanhedrin 76b, gives “join.”
5. הָרָוָה — “The Moist, Satisfied, or Unthirsty”
הָרָוָה — Haravah denotes something moist, well-watered, satisfied, or unthirsty.
Ibn Ezra, Ibn Janach, and Radak understand it in one interpretation as the righteous. Ramban gives an interpretation referring to one who has no desire. Other explanations understand it as the wicked person who has already satisfied his desires (Septuagint; Ramban; Ralbag; Radak; Sforno). Rashi understands it in another interpretation as the accidental sinner who acts like a drunkard, while Rashbam understands it as the spiteful sinner who sins even though he has no real desire.
6. הַצְּמֵאָה — “The Dry or Thirsty”
הַצְּמֵאָה — Hatzeme’ah — “the thirsty” is the opposite of הָרָוָה — Haravah — “the satisfied or unthirsty.”
Ibn Ezra, Ibn Janach, and Radak understand it in one interpretation as the “dry” wicked person. Ralbag understands it as those who possess desires. Chizzkuni and Bachya understand it as desire itself. Rashi understands it as one who sins with full knowledge, while Rashbam understands it as one who sins because of his thirst and desire.
7. לְמַעַן סְפוֹת הָרָוָה אֶת הַצְּמֵאָה — The Complete Expression
The complete expression,
לְמַעַן סְפוֹת הָרָוָה אֶת הַצְּמֵאָה — Lemaan sefot haravah et hatzeme’ah,
is consequently explained in several ways. Saadia gives “to rid thirst with wetness” or “to join the thirsty to the unthirsty.” Radak gives an interpretation involving the righteous being included with the wicked. Ibn Ezra and Ibn Janach understand it as destroying the righteous with the wicked. Chizzkuni understands it as joining the righteous with the wicked. Bachya asks whether the righteous should therefore be destroyed with the wicked. Abarbanel understands it as the moist being watered with the dry. The Septuagint understands it as lest the sinner destroy the guiltless together with himself.
According to Rashi and Targum, accidental sins become joined to deliberate sins. The person’s deliberate decision to walk according to שְׁרִרוּת לִבּוֹ — sherirut libo — the dictates of his own heart changes his standing under the covenant.
This Covenant Was Already Given by Hashem
This warning in Devarim concerns a covenant whose commandments had already been explicitly transmitted by Hashem through Moshe. Earlier in the Torah, Hashem had spoken directly to Moshe and commanded him to transmit His words to בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל — Bnei Yisrael — the Children of Israel.
Vayikra 20:1–6 records one such original statement:
וַיְדַבֵּר ה׳ אֶל מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר — “Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying,” and וְאֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל תֹּאמַר — “And to the Children of Israel you shall say.”
Gd spoke to Moses, telling him to say the following to the Israelites: If any person, whether a [born] Israelite or a proselyte who joins Israel, gives any of his children to Molekh, he must be put to death. The local people must pelt him to death with stones. I will direct My anger against that person, and I will cut him off [spiritually] from among his people, since he has given his children to Molekh, thus defiling that which is holy to Me and profaning My holy name. [Therefore,] if the people ignore the fact that this person has given his children to Molekh and they do not kill him, I will direct My anger against that person and his family. I will cut him off [spiritually] from among his people, along with all those who are misled by him to prostitute themselves to Molekh. If a person turns to the mediums and oracles so as to prostitute himself to their ways, I will direct My anger against him, and cut him off [spiritually] from his people.
This is the original statement being transmitted: וַיְדַבֵּר ה׳ אֶל מֹשֶׁה — “Hashem spoke to Moshe,” followed by וְאֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל תֹּאמַר — “And to the Children of Israel you shall say.” The commandments were already stated and transmitted before the later warning in Devarim against hearing the covenant and then walking according to בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי — bishrirut libi — “the vision of my own heart.”
The Result
The Torah then states the result of the person’s declaration.
לֹא יֹאבֶה ה׳ סְלֹחַ לוֹ — Lo yoveh Hashem seloach lo — “Hashem will not agree to forgive such a person.”
Hashem’s anger and demand for exclusive worship will be directed against him, and the curses written in the Torah will rest upon him.
Devarim 29:20 continues:
וְהִבְדִּילוֹ ה׳ לְרָעָה — Vehibdilo Hashem lera’ah — “Hashem will separate him for evil,”
and he will be subject to:
כֹּל אָלוֹת הַבְּרִית — Kol alot habrit — “all the curses of the covenant.”
The Torah then describes הַדּוֹר הָאַחֲרוֹן — Hador ha’acharon — “the future generation” seeing what has happened to the land. The nations themselves will ask:
עַל מֶה עָשָׂה ה׳ כָּכָה לָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת — “Why did Hashem do this to this land?”
The Torah gives the answer:
עַל אֲשֶׁר עָזְבוּ אֶת בְּרִית ה׳ — Al asher azvu et brit Hashem — “Because they abandoned the covenant of Hashem.”
They went and served foreign gods, and Hashem brought upon the land the curses written in the Torah and drove them from their land.
The passage concludes:
הַנִּסְתָּרֹת לַה׳ אֱלֹקֵינוּ — Hanistarot laHashem Elokeinu — “The hidden things belong to Hashem our Gd.”
וְהַנִּגְלֹת לָנוּ וּלְבָנֵינוּ עַד עוֹלָם — Vehaniglot lanu ulevaneinu ad olam — “But the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever.”
And finally:
לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת כָּל דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת — La’asot et kol divrei haTorah hazot — “To keep all the words of this Torah.”

The Gate of Repentance — Do Not Say, “Tomorrow I Will Act”
One of the great dangers standing in the way of repentance is not necessarily the refusal to repent, but the decision to postpone it. A person may recognize that his actions are wrong and may even sincerely intend to change, yet convince himself that there will be time later. He imagines that he can first satisfy his desires, have his fill of them, and afterward withdraw from sin and return to Gd.
The Duties of the Heart, The Gate of Repentance, Chapter 7, warns against precisely this calculation. A person imagines that he will draw away from sin after first fulfilling his desire for it and having his fill of it. In doing so, he imagines that he can fool the Almighty, as it were. He wants both worlds: first the sin, and afterward the repentance.
Our Masters, of blessed memory, described this attitude clearly:
“He who says, ‘I will sin and repent, sin and repent,’ will be given no chance to repent.” — Yoma 85b
The problem is therefore not merely the individual act of sin. The person has incorporated repentance itself into his calculation. Teshuvah, which was given as the means of returning to Gd, becomes part of the justification that allows him to continue doing what he knows is wrong. He tells himself that there will always be another opportunity to correct what he is doing today.
But tomorrow does not belong to man.
The Admonition at the end of the book expresses this directly:
My soul, make provisions abundantly, not meagerly,
While you still are alive and able;
For a long journey lies ahead of you.
The opportunity to make provisions exists specifically while a person is alive and able to act. Whatever must be repaired, corrected, returned, abandoned, or accomplished belongs to the present world and to the present opportunity.
The warning therefore continues:
Do not say, “Tomorrow I will make provisions”;
For today is gone,
And you do not know what the morrow may bring.
Realize that yesterday will never return,
And that all that you did then
Is weighed, counted, and appraised.
Yesterday cannot be lived again. Once the day has passed, the actions performed during that day have entered the accounting of a person’s life. They are “weighed, counted, and appraised.” Tomorrow, meanwhile, remains unknown. The only period actually placed into a person’s hands is the present.
For this reason, the author continues with an even stronger warning:
Do not say, “Tomorrow I will act”;
For the day of death is hidden from all who live.
Hasten to do each day the appointed task,
For death, at any time, may send its arrow and bolt.
A person does not know the length of his life. He therefore cannot build his repentance upon an assumption that a particular tomorrow will arrive. The appointed work of each day belongs to that day.
The chapter concludes:
Do not delay doing the prescribed work of each day;
For as a bird wanders from its nest,
So must man wander from his place.
This is the final warning of The Gate of Repentance, Chapter 7. Repentance cannot safely be assigned to some future period after a person has finished pursuing what he presently desires. Today disappears, yesterday never returns, tomorrow is unknown, and the day on which a person must leave this world remains hidden from him. Therefore, the work that belongs to today must be done today.

The spiritual DNA of the grandchildren of Abraham is to live differently from ordinary human nature, human notions, and human desires. The purpose of a Jew is not simply to follow whatever direction the surrounding world happens to be traveling. It is to recognize the Creator, to remain connected to Him intellectually and spiritually, and to thank Him for everything.

This is really a very simple idea:

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

The Physical World and Its Creator

When the majority of humanity lives according to its natural instincts, the focus naturally turns toward the physical world and obtaining the maximum possible pleasure from it. Human beings seek comfort, enjoyment, wealth, food, possessions, beauty, entertainment, experiences, and everything else that provides physical and emotional satisfaction.

But a person can enjoy all of these things without ever stopping to recognize or thank the Creator.

Once a person believes in and recognizes the Creator, the entire perspective changes. Nobody created himself. Nobody created his own intelligence, body, personality, abilities, or the world around him. Nobody created the countless things from which he receives pleasure.

The basic logic is simply to connect the dots.

If I did not create myself, and I did not create this world, then Someone created me and created all these extraordinary things from which I receive pleasure.

The natural response should therefore be gratitude.

The Torah Is the Guidebook

The Torah is the guidebook. Some of its instructions are clear, while others contain deeper and more hidden instructions that require study and understanding.

It teaches a person how to blend the physical world with the spiritual world without allowing the physical world to become the purpose of existence.

The Torah does not necessarily demand that a person abandon physical pleasure. It teaches him how to experience physical pleasure while maintaining spiritual purpose as the main focus.

A person can eat and thank Gd.

He can drink and thank Gd.

He can enjoy his family and thank Gd.

He can succeed in business and thank Gd.

He can see something beautiful and thank Gd.

He can wake up every morning and thank Gd.

The danger begins when a person takes the gift and forgets the Giver.

The physical world does not have to compete with the spiritual world when the physical itself leads a person back to its Creator.

What the Torah Means by the Heart

When we say that a person must connect everything back to the Creator in his heart, the Torah meaning of “heart” must be understood correctly.

The heart does not refer only, or even primarily, to emotion. In the terminology of the Torah, the heart is also the place of thought, understanding, recognition, intellectual awareness, and inner consciousness.

Therefore, thanking Gd “in one’s heart” means more than experiencing an emotional feeling of gratitude.

It means intellectually recognizing reality:

I did not create myself.

I did not create what I possess.

I did not create the world from which I receive pleasure.

The language of the heart can also encompass the deeper, nonphysical and immortal dimension of the human being.

The Jewish purpose is therefore to keep this recognition alive within one’s heart and mind—to intellectually connect creation with the Creator and continually recognize and thank Gd for everything one receives.

The Lottery Winner and the Self-Made Man

There is an interesting comparison between a lottery winner and an extremely successful person.

Both can arrive at exactly the same place: neither believes there is anyone to thank.

The lottery winner attributes his fortune to randomness. His numbers happened to come up. There was no purpose behind it. It was simply chance.

The successful businessman makes the opposite argument.

He says:

“I worked. I took the risks. I made the decisions. I built the business. I created my success.”

The lottery winner effectively says:

“Nobody gave this to me. It was random.”

The successful person says:

“Nobody gave this to me. I did it myself.”

They appear to be opposite explanations, but they arrive at precisely the same conclusion:

There is nobody to thank.

One hides the Creator behind randomness.

The other hides the Creator behind himself.

But who gave the successful person his intelligence? Who gave him the personality capable of taking risks? Who gave him his health? Who arranged the people he happened to meet? Why did he enter one business instead of another? Why did one telephone call arrive at precisely the right moment? Why was he born in one country, during one generation, with one particular collection of circumstances rather than another?

Of course he worked hard. Human effort is real. But millions of people work extremely hard without achieving extraordinary financial success.

Precisely because the successful person worked hard, his challenge can be even greater. His own effort can hide the Source of his success.

The human being naturally wants to say:

I worked for it. I built it. I chose correctly. I earned it.

That is where gratitude can disappear.

Randomness cannot eliminate gratitude, and personal effort cannot eliminate gratitude.

Work hard, but recognize Who gave you the ability to work.

Use your intelligence, but recognize Who gave you that intelligence.

Enjoy success, but recognize that countless circumstances necessary for that success were never under your control.

Instead of saying, “I made myself,” the Jewish heart and intellect say:

“I did everything I was required to do, but what I have ultimately comes from Gd.”

The European Enlightenment and Physical Comfort

In Europe, the Enlightenment and the Jewish Haskalah brought an enormous transformation to Jewish life. Over the generations that followed, large portions of European Jewry moved away from traditional Torah observance. In many places, the majority eventually ceased living lives centered upon keeping the mitzvos.

This was more than a change in religious practice. It represented a change in the direction and priorities of life.

European society increasingly presented material advancement, personal freedom, social acceptance, education, culture, physical comfort, and individual desire as central measures of a successful existence.

Jews were offered entrance into that world, and many embraced it.

But the pursuit of physical comfort as an independent purpose is fundamentally incongruent with the Jewish purpose.

Comfort itself is not necessarily the problem. Physical pleasure itself is not necessarily the problem. Wealth itself is not necessarily the problem.

The question is: What is the purpose?

The moment physical comfort, visual pleasure, wealth, social acceptance, entertainment, or personal desire becomes the primary objective, the order has been reversed.

The physical has become the master rather than the instrument.

That is contrary to the spiritual DNA inherited from Abraham.

Abraham’s direction was not determined by what the surrounding civilization considered desirable, fashionable, comfortable, or socially acceptable.

When the World Runs in One Direction

This distinction becomes especially important in the modern world.

When something becomes overwhelmingly popular because of physical, visual, or sensual enjoyment—when pleasure and stimulation themselves become the purpose—it should immediately cause the grandchildren of Abraham to question it.

If society is running overwhelmingly in one direction because something looks good, feels good, provides excitement, or constantly satisfies human curiosity and desire, the Torah Jew cannot assume that its popularity proves its value.

Sometimes its popularity should produce exactly the opposite reaction.

The surrounding world says:

Maximize the experience.

Maximize the pleasure.

Follow what attracts you.

Look at everything.

Experience everything.

Satisfy your curiosity.

The Torah Jew asks different questions:

Who created me?

Why am I here?

What is this doing to my mind?

What is this doing to my heart?

Does this help me remember Gd, or does it make me forget Him?

Instagram, the Internet, and the Modern Generation

This brings us directly to our generation.

Never before has a human being carried such an enormous supply of visual stimulation, entertainment, information, distraction, desire, and curiosity in his pocket every waking hour.

Instagram, social media, and the Internet can provide an almost endless stream of interesting and visually attractive material.

The world follows it because it is interesting.

The world follows it because it is stimulating.

The world follows it because human nature wants to see more.

And precisely here lies the challenge for the grandchildren of Abraham.

A Jew living completely blended into the surrounding non-Jewish world, consuming the same entertainment, following the same images, absorbing the same culture, pursuing the same physical comforts, and constantly exposing his mind to the same distractions must ask what remains different about his direction.

The wisdom inherited from Abraham demands the ability to move against the current.

If the entire world decides that constant Internet connectivity is essential to modern life, perhaps the Jew should at least have the intellectual courage to consider the opposite possibility:

Maybe less Internet is better.

And where it is realistically possible:

Maybe no Internet is better still.

Not because technology itself is automatically the issue, but because the question is what occupies the human mind and heart.

If something constantly fills the mind with the physical world, visual stimulation, curiosity, comparison, entertainment, and desire, while leaving less room for recognition of the Creator, then its usefulness must be measured against its spiritual cost.

The fact that everyone else considers something indispensable cannot itself determine the Jewish approach.

The Purpose of the Grandchildren of Abraham

The true Jewish purpose is remarkably simple:

Acknowledge the Creator.

Remember the Creator.

Thank the Creator.

And ultimately, teach the world to recognize and thank Him.

Everything comes back to that recognition.

The Torah contains an enormous world of mitzvos, wisdom, laws, obligations, and instructions, but underneath everything is the constant connection between creation and its Creator.

Do not take the gift and forget the Giver.

Do not look at success and see only yourself.

Do not look at apparent randomness and see only chance.

Do not look at physical pleasure and forget Who created the capacity for pleasure.

Do not allow the surrounding civilization to determine what deserves your attention merely because millions or billions of people are looking at it.

The continuity of the Jewish people has always depended upon remembering that we are the grandchildren of Abraham and that our direction does not have to be the direction of everybody around us.

The world may run toward something.

The Jew must first ask where it is running and why.

Sometimes the Jewish response is to use the physical world and elevate it by connecting it to Gd.

And sometimes the Jewish response is simply to turn around and walk in the opposite direction.

The ultimate purpose remains the same: to remain connected to Hashem, to preserve the continuity and purpose of the Jewish people, and to recognize the Creator behind everything.

At the end, the fundamental message is extraordinarily simple:

I did not create myself.

I did not create this world.

Everything I have ultimately comes from Gd.

And therefore:

Thank You.

Thank You.

Thank You.

There is a remarkable lesson in the Torah’s description of Vidui Maaser, the declaration made after a person has properly fulfilled his obligations concerning the tithes.
This may possibly be a source for understanding why, when we daven Shemoneh Esrei three times every day, the blessings are generally formulated in the plural. We do not simply ask for ourselves. We ask for all of Klal Yisrael.
The contrast between the two consecutive verses is striking.
In Devarim 26:14, the individual declares:
“I have not eaten of it while in mourning, I have not cleared out any of it while I was impure, and I have not given any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the voice of Hashem my Gd; I have done according to everything You commanded me.”
The entire declaration is personal.
I have not eaten.
I have not removed.
I have not given.
I have listened.
I have done everything You commanded me.
The individual stands before Hashem and accounts for his own actions. He does not speak about what his neighbor did, what his community did, or what somebody else failed to do. His obligations are his own.
But immediately afterward, in verse 15, when the time comes to ask Hashem for blessing, the language changes completely:
“Look down from Your holy abode, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land that You have given us, as You swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
After speaking entirely about himself, he does not ask Hashem to bless himself.
He does not say: I fulfilled Your commandments, therefore bless me.
He does not ask for his own wealth, his own crops, his own family, or his own success.
Instead, the Torah instructs him to ask:
“Bless Your people Israel.”
His declaration is individual, but his request is communal.
His responsibility is expressed as “I.”
His prayer for blessing is expressed as “we.”
Perhaps this provides an insight into the structure of Shemoneh Esrei.
A Jew stands individually before Hashem. Nobody can fulfill his personal obligations for him. His mitzvos are his mitzvos. His aveiros are his aveiros. His decisions and actions belong to him.
Yet when he begins asking Hashem for the necessities and blessings of life, Chazal formulated the central blessings in the plural:
Grant us knowledge.
Return us to Your Torah.
Forgive us.
Redeem us.
Heal us.
Bless us.
Gather us.
Hear our voice.
Grant peace upon us.
The Jew does not ordinarily stand before Hashem three times a day saying only: Give me wisdom. Forgive me. Heal me. Give me livelihood. Save me.
He includes himself within Klal Yisrael.
Certainly, a person who has a particular need may make an individual request in the appropriate place in Shemoneh Esrei. There is room for the personal cry of an individual before Hashem. But the fundamental structure of the daily Amidah remains communal.
This is exactly the pattern that can be seen in these two verses.
When accounting for what he has done, the person says:
I.
When asking Hashem for blessing, he says:
Israel. Us. Our fathers.
That may be one of the secrets of Jewish prayer.
Personal responsibility does not disappear into the community. A person must answer for himself and declare what he himself has done. But when he turns to Hashem and asks for blessing, he does not separate his destiny from the destiny of Klal Yisrael.
The individual acts as an individual.
The individual answers for himself.
But when he asks Hashem for the totality of blessing, he asks for all of Klal Yisrael together.

חלק א׳

במדרש רבה סדר שופטים. א”ר סימון בשם ריב”ל כל מי שבוטח בהקב”ה זוכה להיות כיוצא בו שנאמר ברוך הגבר אשר יבטח בה’ והיה ה’ מבטחו.

אבל מי שיבטח בע”ג נתחייב להיות כיוצא בה שנאמר כמוהם יהיו עושיהם.

צריך לשום לב על כונתם זוכה להיות כיוצא בו. הלא אש אוכלה הוא וכי אפשר להיות כיוצא בו. ואיזה דמות תערכו לו להיות כיוצא בו.

ונראה ע”ד שארז”ל בפרשת קדושים ר’ אבין אמר אוחרי משל לבני המדינה שעשו ג’ עטרות למלך מה עשה המלך נתן בראשו אחת ושתים בראשם של בניו.

כך בכל יום ויום העליונים מכתירים להקב”ה ג’ קדושות מה הקב”ה עושה נותן בראשו אחת ושתים בראשם של ישראל הה”ד דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל קדשים תהיו והתקדשתם והייתם קדשים.

מה שהמשילו הקדושה להעטרה רצו להשכיל אותנו איך כל ישראל יש לו חלק לעה”ב. כמו שהעטרה סובבת הראש להבדילו מזולתו כן ענין הקדושה היא הפרישה והנזירות.

וכן ארז”ל עה”ב אין בה לא אכילה ושתיה אלא צדיקים יושבים ועטרותיהם בראשיהם ונהנים מזיו השכינה.

ביאורו שכל אחד מובדל מחבירו בהשגתו והנאתו מזיו השכינה. כל אחד לפי כח שכלו ורב עמלו בתורת ה’ וידיעת שמו כשהיה בעה”ז. ככה נתוסף לו שפע שבע רצון להנות מזיו השכינה בעה”ב.

וכן המשילו הנביאים דעת ה’ כל אחד לפי בית קבולו. אמר ומלאה הארץ דעת ה’ כמים לים מכסים כמו שאמרו הקדמונים.

ולפי שהבדיל ה’ את עמו מכל העמים להיות לו חבל נחלתו נקראו קדושים והוא מדרגת צדיקים. וצדיקים הם גדולים יותר ממעלת מלאכי השרת.

כ”ש גדולים מעשי צדיקים יותר ממה”ש ולזה אמרו והתקדשתם והייתם קדשים אדם מקדש עצמו מלמטה מקדשין אותו מלמעלה וביאור מלת מלמעלה פי’ יותר ממה”ש מפני שהשגתם של צדיקים למעלה יותר מהשגת המלאכים.

לפי שהמלאכים הם קרובים יותר לכן הם משיגים קצת תהלתו. אפס אינם יודעים כי גדול ה’ מכל אלהים. כי אינם בעלי בחירה לקבל אלהות אחרים. שאינם משיגים רק אמת ושקר. ואינם בעלי טעות.

וכיון שכל אלהי העמים אלילים לא יבחינו ולא יביטו ליקח מהם שבח לאל עולם. לא כן בני אדם היודעים טו”ר ויכולים לטעות. כמ”ש יתרו עתה ידעתי כל גדול אלהים.

לזאת המלאכים אינם רשאים להתחיל לומר שירה עד שיתחילו ישראל ששבחן של ישראל רצויה יותר לפני הקב”ה.

לזאת דרשו ז”ל מי יוכל למלל גבורות ה’ ישמיע כל תהלתו. באמרם מי יוכל למלל גבורות ה’ מי שיכול להשמיע כל תהלתו.

לא ידענו מי הכריחם לעשות פסק באמצע פסוק ולהוסיף מלת מי שיכול.

ונראה כונתם ע”ד שאמרו. ההוא דנחית וכו’ אמר סיימתינהו לכולהו שבחי דמרך הנהו תלתא הגדול הגבור והנורא אלמלא לא אמרו משה ואתו אנשי כנה”ג וקבעינהו בתפלה וכו’.

כי מרע”ה כלל בג’ שבחים אלו. כל תהלות ה’.

וז”ש משל למלך שמקלסין אותו שיש לו אלף אלפים דינרי כסף ויש לו אלף אלפים דינרי זהב הלא גנאי הוא לו.

והענין הוא כי הזהב כולל הרבה של כסף לכן גנאי הוא לו לספר השבח בפרט שאין להם שיעור. כמ”ש סיימתינהו לכולהו שבחי דמרך.

וזה כוונתם מי יכול למלל גבורות ה’ מי שיכול להשמיע במלות קצרות כל תהלתו דרך כלל.

ונראה שזהו כוונת המאמר זוכה להיות כיוצא בו. שחיבה יתירה נודעת לו שהבוטח בה’ זוכה לדברים הרבה עד כי חדל לספור ולספר מעלותיו בפרט ולכל מי שיבוא לספר צדקתו אשר עשה יגידם דרך כלל.

במאמר אחד סובר שא”א לעמוד על סוף חכמתו ויראתו וחסידותו לדעת מה זאת עשה אלהים:

האומנם כל המרבה לספר בשבחיו של הגאון מוה”ר אבא זללה”ה ה”ז משובח. רק מי האיש אשר מלאו לבו. להשמיע כל תהלתו.

אם כל הארץ מלאה הודו כל פה מלאה תהלתו מאין הפוגות. אך לא מהם ולא מהמונם אשר יוכל לספר נוראותיו בצדק היטיב הדק.

אשר ידעתי עודנה מיום הולדו עד זקנה ועד שיבה. אלהים חשבה לטובה. כי עלי החובה. לקרוא חזו מפעלות אלהים:

חלק ב׳

אמנם לבי חלל בקרבי. איך אספר הן דרכו בקודש עמוק וחמוק מאד נעלה. גם במעלליו יתנכר נער בהיותו בן שמונה שנים העמיק שאלה מה למעלה.

אפס רק למען דעת שמו יתברך עשה כל אלה. ולא לכבוד עצמו למד לבנת ספיר החכמה. כ”א להבין אמרי בינה אגדות רז”ל שבאו במשל ומליצה כללי חכמת האמת היה אור לנתיבותיה.

וכל דרכיה שלום בלי שום לחץ ודחק. ורב מהיות קולות אלהים:

ערבים עלי מה ששמעתי מפיו הקדוש והטהור על מאמר חז”ל במסכת ב”ב פרק הספינה. ארשב”נ א”ר יוחנן שלשה נקראו על שמו של הקב”ה. ואלו הן צדיקים משיח וירושלים.

צדיקים הא דאמרן כל הנקרא בשמי וכו’. משיח דכתיב וזה שמו אשר יקראו ה’ צדקינו. ירושלים דכתיב ושם העיר מיום ה’ שמה אל תקרי ה’ שמה אלא ה’ שמה.

גילה לעיני להביט נפלאות מתורתו. כתובים באצבע אלהים:

מודעת זאת כי שמא מפרש הוא ג’ אותיות כי ה’ אחרונה היא כפולה. ועל כל אחד מג’ אלו הזכיר אות אחת משמא מפרש.

אצל הצדיקים הזכיר אות יו”ד משמא מפרש כל הנקרא בשמי הוא שם יו”ד ואצל משיח הזכיר אות ו’ משמא מפרש וזה שמו אשר יקראו הוא שם ו’.

ואצל ירושלים הזכיר אות ה’ משמא מפרש ה’ שמה הוא שם ה’. ואם תזכה תבחין שהוא מדוייק בכוונה נכונה אצל ירושלים אות ה’ ואצל משיח אות וא”ו ואצל צדיקים אות יו”ד כמבואר בזוהר במקומות הרבה.

רוב גבורותיו בביאורים על דרך חכמת האמת מי יתבונן. לא היתה חכמה אשר שגבה ממנו.

בהיותו בן י”ב שנה לא נודע כי באו כל שבע החכמות בקרבו בתכלית הדקות והאמת.

זקנים שבאותו הדור צדיקים עושי רצונו אדירי התורה. בחרו בזקנתם ללמוד קדוש החודש להרמב”ם ז”ל עם מפרשיו. כי ידעו כמה יועיל זה הלימוד הנפלא להרבה ענינים התעסקו בזה חצי שנה.

אז ראו הליכותיך אלהים:

המה צוו לעשות להם כדורים. לידע תנועת הכוכבים דבוקיהם וניגודיהם ושימושיהם וזמני חזירתם חלילה. ואל מעמד כל אחד מהם בכל מזל ומזל ואל זמני שקיעתם ועלייתם.

ויהי החודש אז נאספו ויוועדו יחדיו וכל אחד כדורו בידו ושלחו פארותיהם על פני חלקי העיון. ויצאו מאצטגנינותם ולא יכלו לכוון הכוכבים במסילותם.

כי האומן שעשה הכדורים לא הביט את הטעות אשר יהיה באחרונה מקוצר השגחו ומעבודה ההיא הקשה לא כיון הקוטבים והאופקים אשר בלעדיהן עמודי החכמה ירופפו ויתדותיה גם אדניה יתפלצון.

ואיזה ימים טרם התוועדו הוא היה כבן שמונה שנה. בבואו לאכול סעודת הצהרים טרם יבשלון הסיר חייבהו כח חכמתו מפאת עצמות מעלתה היותר גבוה גבוה לבלתי תכלית שיוכל לעשות כדור השמים בשכלו בעצת עצמו הטובה והנכונה.

במיעוט עסק בספרי התכונה כימים עשור כשיעור חצי שעה בכל יום ובשעות האלו היה מעיין בס’ תכונת השמים ונתעורר על כל דקי הספיקות כקלות כחמורות עד שמצא מלות מועטות בחכמה הזאת מחזיקות את המרובה.

ומצד פקחתו נסתכל ביום הוועדם יחד. שמר את הדבר כל משך הזמן שהיו גדולי הדור קוהים ברוב הספיקות שעה הרבה ע”ד העצה והמלכה.

וכאשר לא היה להם מקום לנטות אנה ואנה ויכנס בסוד עדה לישרים. וישאל ויאמר היכול אוכל דבר מאומה לא להרבות כבודי ולא למעט חלילה כבוד מרנן ורבנן.

כי ידעתי מאמר חז”ל כל המרבה בכבודו וממעיט בכבוד שמים גופו מחולל על הבריות וכבוד שמים מתרבה.

רק בקשתי צדדים לעשות כדור השמים מעקלות וחשוקיהם עץ בסדר נכון ומשובח. לצורך השלמת החכמה ההיא במסמרות עץ נטועים.

לקחתי שמץ החכמה לחזות בנועם ה’ בחידושו תורתו. והורה באצבע באיזה ענף מיוחד נשתבשו האומנים במלאכת מעשה הכדורים שלהם.

ונתיישרו בעיניהם מבוכתם. והביטו אחריו בתכלית החריצות הראוי והנאות לפי גודל חכמתם ומצאו שלא נפל מדבריו הטוב ארצה.

וכאשר ראו כי כיון בדבריו אל דרך הנכונה ענו ואמרו הוא יתן מפיו חכמה דעת ותבונה. בגפ”ת ובכל חכמות הרמות ידו תנחהו.

הוא ידריכם באמתתו במסילה העולה בית אל. אל נכח פני ה’ לתכלית יראתו ועבדתו. זה מתת אלהים:

כל החכמות אליו ידרושו ספחנו נא לרקחות ולטבחות. לכה אתנו ונלכה באור ה’ ונרוצה באורחותיו ונשען על אמרת קדוש ישראל באמת. שאר ישוב אליו.

בראשונה היא חכמת המספר והמשנשים. הניף לה ידו והרים לה קולו בואי נא ברוכה ה’ לשערי התורה והוראה.

כי גם רבים חללים הפילה ואת בקיעי בני עמינו ראיתי כי רבו. אולי המאור של תורה יחזירנה למוטב ותקעתיה יתד במקום נאמן. למען יראו וידעו כי יד ה’ עשתה גם זאת.

ויאמר אליה ספר אתה בעישורייתא דבי רבי למען תצדק. ותורהו ותאמר אליו יתמוך דברי לבך.

אם נוטלין ששה בנות עדיין נשאר לו שלשה וחצי. ועוד חלק עשרים ומעט יותר. דהיינו אחד מחמש מאות ומעט מן המעט יותר.

ובכ”ד בנות יותר לו המעשר. ר”ל אחד מעשרה. והוא כלל גדול בחכמת הקבלה לך דומיה תהלה אלהים:

ויאמר אנסה נא עוד הפעם אם כל חפצי תשלים. הן רז”ל אמרו כל אמתא בריבוע אמתא ותרי חומשי באלכסונה.

וקראוהו חכמים בהיותו קרוב אחד משבעים בקירוב חסדי מאתך לא ימוש אם תאמר לי כלל הקירוב.

רוח מבינתה תענהו שהוא אחד מארבעה עשר אלף בקירוב. ור”ל אחד משבעים פחות אחד מי”ד אלף בקירוב.

ובחידושיו על גפ”ת. הנני נוטה אליכם כל דבריו בביאור לעין כל. ותתן לבך כלב אלהים:

חלק ג׳

ויפן אל חכמת התכונה ויאמר עבדי אתה. כי הנביאים הראשונים התנבאו שאו מרום עיניכם וראו מי ברא אלה המוציא במספר צבאם וכו’ לזאת בחרתיך ולא מאסתיך הנה עתה תקום דברי עבדיו ועצת רז”ל תשלים.

בקידוש החודש לפניהם תלך והדורים תיישר. להבין דברי חכמים אשר המליצו דבריהם במכמני מסתרי החכמה וסוד העיבור בשיטות החמורות בר”ה ובעירובין.

כל גדולי הדור נתקבצו באו על מבועי החכמה ינהלם ומסילותיה הרים. פיהם פתחו בחכמה ויאמרו הנמצא כזה אם לא בחוזים.

כאהלות נטע ה’ עלי עצי ארזים. רואיו מנעוריו התענגו בו מאוד למשגב. כתענוג האוזן עלי מנים ועוגב.

חכמת אדם תאיר פניו. עד זוהר חמה נגד זוהרו למאומה נחשבה. אם זוהר השמש בתבל כלה. זוהר חכמתו כעין חשמלה.

משוטטת גם בעלטה ואופל. ה’ אמר לשכון בערפל. וכל עצי עדן לא עממוהו בגן אלהים:

בהיותו בן עשר שנים היה לו חבר מובהק דבק מאח. ש”ב הרב הגאון המפורסם מו’ אריה ליב ז”ל אב”ד דק”ק טשעחאנאוויטש.

והיה עמית אתו בגפ”ת הקימו להם משמורות. לכולם עתים סדורות. רק כמה שעות ביום שם שם לו לבדנה. מטמון אמונה. ללמוד תוצאות מקור הבינה:

כל חלקי הזוהר וס’ פרד”ס וכתבי האר”י ז”ל שם ידו הדה ושם יעדה לו לבדו בלי חבר. ובששה חדשים עבר משער לשער כל ביאור הזוהר.

ופרשו אור שכלו להאיר עד מכונה לבוא לנקודה הראשונה כי ידע אלהים.

בביאורו על זוהר חדש ראיתי מכתביו על כתוב. ולנעמי איש מודע. מגלה רזין מה שלא רצו תנאים הראשונים לגלות לתלמידיהם.

וכתב שנתגלה לו להודיע לנו ברמז כדרכו הטובה במכתביו הרבים והשלמים. עוד גילה לנו במכתביו דבריו הסתומים מעין כל חי אולי נזכה כולנו לאורו.

ואעשה עמכם חסד אלהים:

בהיותו בן י”א שנה אז כל תהלה לעומתו מגרעת. וכל מתי החכמה והדעת. נלאו לשער בבינה מכרעת. רוב שכלו אשר כמעין נובעת.

ביום שמחת לבו הוא ליל שמחת תורה. זכור תזכור עליו נפשו כי מזמן ידוע ומעת קבוע. נדרה נפשו. ללמוד מסכת זבחים ומנחות ולסיים בשמחת תורה.

ועדיין לא החל מלאכתו כי כל השנה הפיצו מעינות שכלו בגפ”ת בארבעה סדרים הראשונים ובפוסקים ראשונים ואחרונים.

אז דלג ברוב עוז אהבת ה’ ותפקחנה עינו כל הלילה ההוא.

וילן שם איש טוב ומעולה מופת הדור חריף ובקי חכם חרשים המנוח מה’ מיכל ז”ל מדאטנאווי הקיצותו בחצות הלילה וישאל עליו איו איפה נעלם.

הכי לא היה בינינו כ”א חולם ויבא החדרה אין זה כי אם בית אלהים:

שמה מצאו עוסק בתורה הודה והדרה במסכת זבחים בדף חמשים.

ור’ מיכל בראותו את אלה בא למולו והרים את קולו. ומשפטו עליו חרץ. אדם אין צדיק בארץ.

איך נדמית לי שכל מעשיך בלי שוא ותפל. עתה ראיתי המה בלי חיבור וטפל. בשתי שעות למדת חמשים דפים משיטות חמורות בלי ספק היש טעם כבריר חלמות.

ויבוא לנסותו בחידות במקומות הקשות בגפ”ת באותן חמשים דפים. אם הוא מבנים כחשים. אשר נפשם יעשו באושים.

ויענהו על כל דברי הקשים. לכל חפצו דרושים. בכמה פנים. ככה נסהו עשרה מונים.

אז אמר ר’ מיכל בלבו. מובטחני בזה שאורו תצהיר לכל יושבי האדמה. הלא מנוגה נגדו בנעוריו חפרה הלבנה ובושה החמה.

מה יקר חסדך אלהים:

וישכב ר’ מיכל ויישן כפעם בפעם הבוקר אור ויקץ משנתו ולבו הומה:

רוחו מחופפת. ונפשו נכספת. לראות ולדעת חדשים לבקרים כמה למד העלם הזה.

וישב לפנות בוקר וימצאהו שהחל מסכת מנחות ולמד יותר מהחצי ויאמר בלבו מי יוכל למצוא עד תכלית חפצך.

ודבר בלבו דבר כפעם בפעם היאומן קלות המרוץ בלימודו. ויחל לנסהו עוד הפעם במקומות הקשות בחצי ההוא שלמד באותו הלילה.

ומצאוהו יותר מכדי מדתו בעומק החריפות יותר מכדי שיעור. ויגזור אומר אין זה כ”א מברואי ברק.

ראיתי כי כל הויות דאביי ורבא הוא מפרק.

ויברכהו ויאמר שמעך יבורך בסוד ישרים ועדה. זרעו יבורך כן דור דורים. וגם ישאל במשפט האורים.

וימלא אותו רוח אלהים:

לא שקט עד השלים נדרו וסיים מס’ זבחים ומנחות קודם תפילת השחר.

ויתפלל עם הציבור ברוב עליזות ועליצות נפשו ושמח בשמחת תורה בזיו זוהר שלהבת נשמתו.

נורא איומה ברה כחמה אשר ממחצב צח הורמה. אשרי עין ראתה זאת למשמע אזן דאבה נפשי ונפשיכם.

מה זאת עשה לנו אלהים:

איך אנחם. הן הבא לחקור ולהשיג כח חכמתו ולשים גבול לגדולתו לשוא צרף צורף.

הן עשה לבדו נפלאות גדולות. וכל צבאי צבאות הציב גבולות ה’ נתן לו חכמה לא ישיג האדם כפי הראות.

רצוני למלאות מאוויי בני עמנו להגיד המעט אשר ידעתי. אמרתי אספרה כמו יעלה כרך גדול ונורא.

אגיד ראשי דברים יגדל חשוקיהם ויתמעט תכלית מאוייהם. לזאת הרפו.

יזכני ה’ להוציא לאור עולם צדקותיו ונוראותיו בחיבוריו הרבים והשלמים תזכו לחזות בנועם ה’ ולבקר יום יום בחידושי תורתו.

ישמע חכם ויוסיף לקח.

נר לרגלי אמרי נועם רז”ל מ”ד עשיתי משפט וצדק בל תניחני לעושקי משל לסוחר שמבקש לילך בדרך מה עשה לקח כל פרקמטיא שלו אבנים טובים ומרגליות ונטלן בחיקו ויצא.

באו עליו לסטים ותפשוהו א”ל מה בידך אמר אין בידי אלא כלי זכוכית אלו. א”ל אלו בכמה א”ל שתים בסלע ושלש בסלע.

אמרו זה לזה ובשביל אלו נהרוג אותו הניחוהו והלכו להם.

נכנס הסוחר אל המדינה התחיל יושב ומוכר בדמים יקרים נכנסו הלסטים אצלו א”ל זו בכמה וזו בכמה א”ל זה במאה מנה וזה בריבוא.

א”ל אתה הוא שאמרת שתים בסלע ושלש בסלע א”ל באותה שעה במקום סכנה הייתי עכשיו אם אין אתם נותנין בכדי דמיה אין אתם נוטלין אותה.

כך ישראל בעה”ז מי שהוא עושה מצוה אינו יודע מתן שכרה אבל לע”ל הן תמהין ממתן שכרה שאין העולם כלו יכול לקבלה עכ”ל.

הנה על פי הדברים האלה תשכיל ותראה.

תלמידיו הראשונים אשריהם ואשרי חלקם קבלו תורתו ויראתו באופן יותר שלם ויותר קרוב האפשרי.

כי מי הוא ואי זהו אשר ימצא את עצמו רחוק ממקום חיותו. ולא יחלץ איש מהר להתקרב בהיות לאל ידו.

כי היו זריזים ופקחים נתנו תמיד לבם על דרכיהם. וחושדין את עצמן ונתנו את כאת מגמתם לבוא אל תכלית כונת רבם.

ותלמידיו האחרונים קבלו באופן ושיעור הפחות ולא נראה להם בידו אלא כלי זכוכית.

וכאשר שמעו כי דבריו יקרים המה בקצוי ארץ וים רחוקים. עשקו בלי צדק ומשפט.

ואמת הוא בכלל האדם. כי השפע היורד עליו מרבו ע”פ מדתו מתהפך בלב כל אחד כפי מה שהוא.

והאיש הנבון והטוב בעצמו ישמע ויוסיף לקח וימתיק הענין בלבו ויצץ ציץ ויגמול פרי יפה תואר.

כן עשו תלמידיו הראשונים צמחן עשו קמח מנופה וסולת נקי.

לא כן האחרונים גם שהסתיר מהם ועשה כל פרקמטיא שלו לעת זקנותו אבנים טובות ומרגליות.

ולא היה כחם יפה להשיגם והשיגו העתקות.

וחוששין אנחנו להם מחטאת ושגגת תלמוד שעולה זדון. כי החיוב עליהם לברר וללבן עם כתיבת יד קדשו.

והמה כאדם עברו ברית האמונה הפרו חוק דת התלמידים ההגונים.

ולא עליהם בלבד תלונותינו אלא גם על המסייעים. לא די שלא השתיקו והכחישו כחם אלא שנפנו לעזור אותם ולאמת עניינם:

חלק ד׳

אמנם לא יתכן. היות המעשים המכוונים מגדולי אנשים ימשך במקרה.

אבל היה מעלה עמוקה אלהית למען הביא ה’ על אברהם את אשר דבר עליו.

לבטל דמויי האנשים אשר יתפתו אחריהם לחשוד אותי בדבר שאין בי.

חלילה להוסיף דברים מלבי. לערב בלשונו הנקי מה לתבן את הבר.

והיתה העצה הנכונה בזה לקחת שנים ושלשה מזקני תלמידיו וחכמיו אנשי סודו אשר פתח להם שערי חכמתו.

הם יבינו וישכילו כתיבת ידו ממש ומסורת החכמה בידם לסדרם.

בעיון רב על התנאים ודברים הדקים שראוי לצרף עם המלאכה הזאת.

והטילו איסור חמור.

ויצאו אנשים מגדר היראה והמוסר וכתבו כפי אשר שמעו איש מפי איש ומפי כתבם.

פעמים באו בארוכה ופעמים באו בקצרה במקום שאמרו להאריך.

ואנכי שמרתי ארחותי והבאתי כתיבת ידו ממש אל החכמים הזקנים המבוררים וסידרו באופן היותר נאות לפי כחם.

והמבינים ישימו וישכילו האמת לאמתתו.

ויותר אשים לפי מחסום.

ואעזוב אל המעיין בהם ומשים לב על תוכן כוונתו ז”ל בהגיע העיון אל מקומם ודי בזה:

חלק ה׳

צריכין אנחנו למודעי. כי בזה יובדל ביאוריו ז”ל מזולתו.

כי רבים וכן שלמים עמלו הרבה בתורה. ושלימותם בחותמם זכה להם והשכילו הרבה ביאורים מתוקים לחיך.

דבריהם הם זכרוניהם כל חיך הטועמם אומר לי הוא.

רק לא השגיחו על פרטי הכתוב ודקדוקיו ומרגלא בפומיהם. ברובי התורה כפל הענין במלות שונות.

ובאמת כל מדרשי רז”ל במדרשים וזוהר דקדקו הרבה לבאר כל מלות הכפולות ובדקות פשטות הענין.

כן היה דרכו של מר אבא הגאון זללה”ה בביאורי הכתובים יגיעות הרבה יגע ברוב חריפותו ודקות עיונו וגודל השגתו.

להעמיד הכתובים על פשוטן שלא יהיה אות אחת יתירה וכל המלות כפולות יבוארו הבדילן.

אחרי דבריו לא ישנו.

וכל א’ יבין לאשורו כפי השגתו. אם בדרך הפשט.

ומי שחננו דעת אלהים ילך למישרים כפי כח השגתו.

דור לדור יספרו נפלאותיו. ויאמרו מי ימלל גבורות חכמתו וקדושתו.

אין אומר ואין דברים להשמיע כל תהלתו.

אתה ה’ לבדך לא עזבתו כל מספר ימי חייו.

כאשר היית עם אבותינו אל תעזבנו ואל תטשנו.

ותן בלבנו לעבדך בלבב שלם להבין חבוריו בנגלה ובנסתר למען דעת שמך הגדול.

כרצונך ורצון יראיך ורצון כל בית ישראל.

דברי בניו העומדים צפופים מיראת רוממותו וקדושתו:

יהודה ליב בהגאון החסיד האמתי מוה’ אליהו זללה”ה מווילנא

אברהם בהגאון החסיד האמתי מוה’ אליהו זללה”ה מווילנא

“Following the Holocaust, I heard the pious genius, Rabbi Mordechai Pagremansky of blessed memory, say:

‘Over the course of the Holocaust, the Jewish People endured the test which challenged their love of Gd “with all of your soul” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Would they be able to accept that it is the will of Gd that they be killed for nothing more than being Jews?

Afterwards, the challenge will be on the next part of the verse: [and you shall love Gd] “with all of your resources.” The generations which will follow the Holocaust will be tested to see if they honor Gd with their wealth.

Just as in Egypt: at first the Jewish people were subject to unspeakable affliction and servitude, yet ultimately, they left with great riches. As our Sages teach: Not one Jew had less than ninety Libyan donkeys, which were laden with the gold and silver [reclaimed] from Egypt (Talmud, Bechoroth 5b).

Likewise, after the inferno of the Holocaust, the Jewish nation will experience an era of material prosperity. Hashem will grant the Jews a disproportionate quantity of wealthy individuals.’

“I asked him what he meant. He replied:

‘I’m not talking about just millionaires. I’m talking about billionaires! There will be numerous Jewish billionaires, an era of wealth which the Jewish people has not experienced in all the years of our exiles.

And the purpose for this affluence is to test the mettle of those so blessed. Will they give generously, out of love of Gd, and happy that they were chosen as Gd’s emissary to disburse of their wealth to the poor, and to the many organizations which teach Torah, or which proffer assistance to those who need help.’

“This is a formidable challenge, comparable to the previous test. As the Talmud explains:

‘There are those for whom giving up their lives for love of Gd is a greater challenge, and those for whom giving up their assets for the love of Gd is a greater challenge.’

That is why the verse needs to spell out both “with all of your soul,” and “with all of your resources” (Berachoth 61b).

“These are the two crucibles of the love of Gd for the last generations before the arrival of the Messiah.

First: ‘With all of your soul.’

Finally: ‘With all of your resources.’

Fortunate is he who can stand strong and pass the test!”