As heard on parshas Bereishis (Genesis) from Rav Moshe Weinberger

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This past Shabbos Bereishis I was at Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY (well, actually I was there starting on Hoshannah Rabbah and just got back very early Thursday morning) and wanted to share a small part of what  remember from Rav Moshe Weinberger’s Shabbos drasha.  I take all responsibility for any mistakes and lack of fully explaining any ideas given over by Rav Weinberger.

Rav Weinberger started off mentioning that from Rosh Chodesh Elul until Hoshannah Rabbah we have 51 days.  He then quoted the 4th pasuk from the 4th perek of Bereishis:

4. And Abel he too brought of the firstborn of his flocks and of their fattest, and the Lord turned to Abel and to his offering.
ד וְהֶבֶל הֵבִיא גַם-הוּא מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ, וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן; וַיִּשַׁע יְהוָה, אֶל-הֶבֶל וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ.

The pasuk says “Hevel haivee gam hu” to teach us that Hevel didn’t just bring his karbon, but he brought gam hu “also him[self]”, giving 100% of who he was.
If you give someone a present, just to be yotzei by giving a gift,  it’s isn’t as personal and meaningful as really putting thought i, ento giving someone a present, thereby giving part of yourself to another person.  The greatness of Hevel was that he gave himself over to Hakodesh Baruch Hu.  Much in the same way that Avraham intended for Yitzchak to be a karbon and, in fact, Chazal teach that even it was as if Yitzchak himself became the karbon.

Rav Weinberger then said he had a machshava based on the 1st pasuk in the 2nd perek of Koheles:
1.    I said to myself, “Come now, I will mix [wine] with joy and experience pleasure”; and behold, this too was vanity.
א אָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי בְּלִבִּי, לְכָה-נָּא אֲנַסְּכָה בְשִׂמְחָה וּרְאֵה בְטוֹב; וְהִנֵּה גַם-הוּא, הָבֶל.

Rav Weinberger noted that again we have almost the same loshon of gam hu havel as in the pasuk in Bereishis.  If I recall correctly, we can replace “havel” with “Hevel“, and see again that we have to give of ourselves when severing Hashem. with joy and pleasure.

He concluded by saying that a person can spend those 51 days between Rosh Chodesh Elul and Hoshannah Rabbah going those the actions offering up karbonos of Selichos, mikvah, teshuva, davening, mussaf, al chaits, living in the sukkah, saying hallel, shaking our lulavim and esrogim, and performing hoshannos, but if we are not prepared to fully give ourselves, “gam hu“, then it’s as if we aregive a present in a haft-hearted way and not fully giving a karbon to Hashem in the most beautiful way possible.  We each have to give of ourselves to Hashem.  That’s what he wants from us.

Your Hulu is more treif than my Starbuck’s iced latte

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This isn’t a rant. Those who know which time zone I am was in for the first days, however, will probably get what I am saying.
One of the messages within the Arba Minim is that of achdus, coming together for the sake of a mitzvah, and realizing that each element (or person) is important to Knesses Yisrael.
So, if someone let’s their kids watch ANYTHING on Hulu, but gives a guy who gets an iced latte after minyan at Stop&Shop a “shmooze” about cholov Yisrael then it’s really no surprise why we are still waiting for Moshiach.
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The Rav and the Rebbe

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Published in Song of Teshuva,  a commentary on Rav Kook’s Oros HaTeshuvah by Rav Moshe Weinberger and adapted by Yaacov Dovid Shulman.

Rav Weinberger tells over the following story (pages 134-135):

When Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik went to a farbregen (a Chassidic gathering) on the occasion of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s eightieth birthday, he was very impressed by the Rebbe’s brilliance and erudition.  But on the the way home, Rav Soloveitchik said that there was one thing with which he did not agreee.  When he offered the Rebbe a l’chaim (a toast), the Rebbe said, “Now the descendants of R. Chaim Volozhiner and the family of the Baal HaTanya have come together.”  Rav Soloveitch said that this was not true.  They had come together earlier, when Hitler had put the Chassid and the misnaged (the opponent of Chassidism) together in the same oven.  That was when we realized that there is no difference between one Jew and another.

It should not take someone who hates and persecutes the Jewish people to remind us that there is no difference between Jews on the level of the soul.  We must appreciate that the sould of every Jew is inseparable from the Congregation of Israel.

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Rav Frand on the how to disagree and the paradigm of unity

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In Rav Frand’s Teshuva drasha for this year (recorded live in Los Angeles on the first night of Selichos and available for purchase here), he discussed the need for unity on Yom Kippur and gave over an amazing story about Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld 

and Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, who both had very different ways of viewing both the state of Israel (at the time called Palestine), the Jews who lived there, and secular education.


Rav Frand said:

When Rav Kook and Rav Sonnenfeld went to the little communities, the little kubutzim up in the north, where they [the residents] ate chazair treif, they went together to bring people back to Yiddishkeit.  Baalei Machloches- they held each other were wrong, but they worked together.  They disagreed without being disagreeable and we have not learned to do that.  When we disagree, you’re invalid, not entitled to your opinion.  Their vehement machloches never devolved in animosity.

 

You know, Rav Kook and Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld were once invited to a bris.  Rav Yosef Chaim was to be the mohel and Rav Kook was supposed to be the zandek and they got to the shul at the same time.  Rav Yosef Chaim insisted that Rav Kook go in first, because he was a cohen.  Rav Kook insisted that Rav Yosef Chaim should go in, because he was a bigger person.  And they stood at the door frozen, they wouldn’t go until Rav Kook noticed that it was a double door and the left portion of the door was locked.  He reached in beside and pulled down the thing and they opened both doors simultaneously and they went in together.  That’s the paradigm [to how we should behave].


The entire shiur, Teshuva 2011 – Conflict Resolution: Within Our Community and Within Ourselves, is available for purchase and downloading on the Yad Yechiel website.




Any inaccuracies in this transcription are mine.  This is posted in zechus of a refuah shelayma for Reuven ben Tova Chaya and Miriam Orit bas Devorah. 

Excerpt from "Song of Teshuva

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The excerpt below is from, Song of Teshuva, a commentary on Rav Kook’s Oros HaTeshuvah by Rav Moshe Weinberger and adapted by Yaacov Dovid Shulman.

The currents of teshivah- of the individual and of the community- surge forward.

This image of teshuvah as a flowing river comes from a passage in the Zohar: “There is a hidden place, which is the depth of the well.  And from it rivers and springs stream to every direction.   And that deepest of all depths is called teshuvah” (Acharei Mos 70).

A related idea is coveyed in by the fact that the Hebrew word for “river”, nakhal, is an acronym of the phrase, “nafsheinu khiksa laShem– “our soul hopes for Hashem” (Tehillim 33:20).

The currents of teshuvah flow- within the individual, community and the entire Jewish people- in the form of an inclination to chagne and improve.

Thus, the Gemara teaches that every day a heavenly echo calls out, “Return to God” (Pirkei Avos 6:2 and Hagigah 15a).  The Baal Shem Tov explains that this echo is not a loud proclamation, but our inner awareness of teshuvah calling to us.
Rav Kook believed that despite its many detours and difficulties, the world is spiritually improving, and he refused to accept a dark, negative and pessimistic outlook.  He saw this return to God as being woven into the very texture of the universe.  This view is not unique to Rav Kook.  Thus, when people told the R. Yisrael Meir Kagen, the Chofetz Chaim, that the Balfour Declaration marked the beginning of the redemption, he demurred and replied that Creation itself marked the beginning of redemption.  (Pages 106-107)

Good links for Elul

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So, it officially Elul.  Here are a few links you might like.

Rabbi Micha Berger just started writing about the sefer Shaarei Yosher by Rav Shi’mon Sh’kop (who was the rebbe of Reb Dovid Lifshitz).

Rabbi Revuen Brand, Rosh Kollel of the YU Torah MitzionKollel of Chicago has a great shiur available to listen to or download titled, The Character of Elul.

Also, Elul wouldn’t be Elul with posting a link to “Elul in Slabodka“.