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The pasuk in this week's parsha says, "Imbuchukosai teilechu v'smitzvosai tishmoru vaasisa mosam." The Torah tells us If you'll follow my chukim, this is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying, and you'll perform my mitzvos and do them And then that's the positives, and then there's something called the tochacha. If you do the negatives, that's all the punishments we get if we don't do what Hashem wants. So what's the imagery that's being used over here? The Torah is very specific in its terminology. It says im bechukosai telecho. What does telecho mean? Telecho means that we're walking. So are you walking in Hashem's ways? That's the imagery that the Torah uses. So what would you expect the Torah to say if it's speaking about the negative? If you walk in my ways, what would be the opposite of that? What would you expect? If you don't walk in my ways, so it's very interesting.
It is sort of true, as we'll see in a moment, that the Torah does use that imagery, but it doesn't use that imagery at first. Let's look at another pasuk in this week's parashah. Just a couple of pesukim later, twelve pesukim later, the Torah says as follows: The im bechukosai timasu And be, what does timasu mean? Mius means disgusted. If you'll be disgusted by my chukim, the im es mishpatai tigal nafshechem. If you're sickened by my laws, levilti asos is kol metsvosai lahafrechem es brisi, and you won't perform any of my commandments, and you'll break the covenant. So it's a very stark shift that the Torah made. Originally, how does the Torah say? If you follow my commandments, how does it mean? If you walk in my ways. We would have expected that the negative is if you don't walk in my ways. But that's not what the Torah says. The Torah says if you're sickened by my laws. If you despise my laws, Hashem says. Do you see how it almost seems to be like very asymmetrical? Doesn't seem like a normal way of expressing it. So the implication at this point we would think is something like this: we would say,"Look
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To be indifferent about Hashem's laws, to just not care, to not be so passionate—that's not so bad, right? If you really want to be punished by Hashem, then you're punished. Why? Not just because you didn't do what He wants. You're punished only if you're sickened by it. You're punished if you despise Hashem's laws. That's what we would have thought, and in fact, that's what the Svarno seems to imply. The Svarno says, 'Shalo belvad tevatlam, aval temasubam.' It's not that you were mevatel the mitzvos. People don't necessarily do all the mitzvos. That's not why you get punished. You get punished because you hated the mitzvos. You despise the mitzvos. You were sickened by the mitzvos. That's why you get punished. So it's interesting. We started off. You walk in Hashem's ways. The opposite is not that you didn't walk in Hashem's ways. What's the opposite of walking in Hashem's ways? That you despise Hashem's ways, that you're sickened by Hashem's ways. And if you have that feeling Then you're punished.
And if we stopped the shir right now, there probably wouldn't be much left to say. Baruch Hashem, we have one last pasuk to analyze, which is going to throw a monkey wrench in our entire hypothesis. There's another pasuk, just a couple of sukkim later. Back to the imagery of walking. Ve'im telchu imi keri. If you walk with me, I'm not going to translate the word keri yet. If you walk with me, keri. Ve'lo tovvu l'shmoali, and you do not wish to listen to me. Ve'asafti aleche makasheva kechatos echem And I will add seven punishments corresponding to your sins. So what does that word keri mean? Because now we're back to that word telchu. Remember, in the beginning we said. If you walk in Hashem's ways, that's the positive. We would have thought, what? What's the negative? If you don't walk in Hashem's ways. But before that, the Torah said, no. It's not just that you didn't walk in Hashem's ways. You have to despise Hashem's ways. You have to be sickened by Hashem's ways. Then you're worthy of punishment. But now we're back. We're back to this imagery of walking.
It says, ve'im telchu imi kari. If you walk with me, carry. What does that word carry mean? So some mepharshim say that the word keri means rebellious And that makes sense, then. Because that's similar to what we said before. If you despise Hashem's ways, if you're sickened by Hashem's ways, if you're rebellious, so it's all along the same lines. However Other mepharshim give a different translation of this word keri, and it's very shocking to us. They translate the word keri as happenstance. If you're indifferent. If you just don't really care about Hashem's ways, then you're going to get punished sevenfold. But we just got done saying the exact opposite of that. Remember, what's the line up in the Torah here? It starts if you walk in Hashem's ways. That's the positive. Then we said if you are sickened by Hashem's ways, if you're disgusted by Hashem's ways, then you're punished.
But if you're indifferent, it sounded like that's not such a big deal. But now, at the very end, there are those that say that you're punished sevenfold. The worst thing is what if you're indifferent? I don't understand. Didn't we just get done saying that indifference is not such a big deal? I want to share with you a story that happened today. I told this young man that I met with. I said I'm going to be telling your story tonight. And he gave me rishos to tell the story. I'm going to change some of the details because I don't want it to be public. The story I'm about to tell you happened this morning. Young man in yeshiva messages me this morning. He said, 'Rebbe, I know it's late. I know usually in order to get some time, I need to tell you a couple days in advance.' Said, but I could really use some time.
So I pushed him to the head of the list. I got the sense that He really needed to talk. So I pushed him to the head of the list and I said, "you come first." So he came into my office. You know how sometimes a person is on the verge of tears already when they sit down. He was Already like breaking by the time he sat down in the chair. I said, "What's going on?" Again, I'm going to change some of the details of the story because it's not really relevant, and I want to protect his dignity. This young man. Had a dream from the time he was fourteen years old. That he wanted to be a chayal in the Israeli army. That was his dream. His dream was that he was going to come to Eretz Yisrael, and all he wants to do is serve Am Yisrael.
And the way that he wanted to serve Am Yisrael was becoming a chayal. That was his dream. That was his vision. Unfortunately, I'm going to change some of the details. Here's where I'm changing the details. When he was in tenth grade, he was a totally healthy kid. All of a sudden, the craziest thing happened, and he developed a very serious—I don't even know what to call it—illness, not a disease exactly. They never 100% diagnosed it, but he got very, very sick, and it physically debilitated him. And even though today, Baruch Hashem, it seems like the disease has stopped, he's not physically 100%. The thing is, almost nobody knows it. He doesn't tell anyone that he had this disease. He keeps it very private. But physically, it's very hard for him. It's hard for him to get around in Yeshivayim. He doesn't take no for an answer. He's a very committed person. He doesn't want help from anybody.
So guys in Yeshiva, for the most part, have no clue that he has this disease. Only a couple of people know in Yeshiva. Physically, it's very difficult for him. Again, I don't even want to say what his physical ailment is because I don't want to, in any way, indicate who it is. But it's a very serious thing. It makes it very difficult for him to be in yeshiva. It makes it very difficult for him to learn. It makes it very difficult for him to daven. It makes it very difficult for him to get dressed in the morning, let alone to go around Yerushalayim to take buses to take the light rails. But Baruch Hashem, for the last two years in yeshiva. He's managed. And in his head. He always knew, but he never wanted to confront the reality that his dream of being a chayal in the Israeli army. And he's not going. He's not one of these guys who wants to go to the Israeli army because he wants to be Rambo. He's not one of these guys who's going because he just wants to be cool and carry a gun. He really has a hashkafa. I want to serve this country, and that's the best way that I know how. That's really what he wants, and he's wanted it since he's 14 years old.
But after that, when he became 15 His life changed in a way that he knew he would never be able to become an Israeli soldier. Time goes on, and now he knows this is the reality. He just can't accept it. He's waiting for some miracle. He comes shnailif, he comes to yeshiva, he shteigs like crazy. He comes shnabet, and now he's on the verge. He has to make a decision of what college he's registering for because he does not have an option to go to the Israeli army and to say, 'I want to be a chayal, I want to be a soldier, I want to be in combat.' They will not let him. And the nature of his disease, the nature of his physical ailment, is that you can't even fake it. If you go to the Israeli army and you tell them I have perfect vision, you could sometimes mess around. Even if you don't have perfect vision, you could still get into a better unit if you tell them you have perfect vision. The nature of his physical ailment is that they will catch it right away. He has no way of faking it.
And he walked into my office this morning. He wasn't just on the verge of tears; he was shaking. And he sat down. We shmoosed for about forty-five minutes this morning. He is so angry. He's so angry at Hashem. Why did you do this to me? It's one thing that I have a physical disease. It's one thing that I have this ailment that I have to live with. That's already hard enough. I know in my life. This is what he said. I know I'm going to have to take help. I know I'm going to be a person who has to ask people for help, which for him is totally like he promised himself, I'm never going to take help, but it's not real. He's not going to be able to drive a car in his life. Wherever he goes, somebody's going to have to drive him. There are things he's not going to be able to do.
But for the last two years living in Eretz Israel, he's never had to ask anyone to give him a ride because he knows how to get on a bus. In here, he's like everybody else. When he goes on a light rail, he's like everybody else. When he goes back to New York or New Jersey or Chicago or L.A., it doesn't matter where he's from. Where he goes back to that place, it's not like everybody takes buses. He cannot drive a car. He hates the fact that he's going to have to take help. That already would be enough But here he feels like the Rebbeinu Sholom robbed him of his dream. That is a terrible thing to have to live with. That Hashem, all I wanted to do was serve you, and now I can't. And he's so angry at Hashem, and he's sitting in my office this morning, and he's just like, why, why did this happen to me? He was physically holding his arms, like he was shaking. Forty-five minutes. I promise you, I barely spoke for maybe six or seven minutes maximum.
Most of the time was him expressing his anger. And I have to tell you It was beautiful. There's something very beautiful about someone's anger towards Hashem. Because anger towards Hashem is still a type of a relationship. When we hate something, when we're angry at something, it's because of the love that we have for something. Obviously, the ideal is that our love is revealed and that everything is good. But if you think about it, why does a parent get angry at a child? Why does a child get angry at a parent? Why does a husband get angry at a wife? Why does a wife get angry at a husband? It's only because we love them. When a wife says something hurtful to her husband, or when a husband says something hurtful to a wife, why does it hurt that much more? Because you were the person that I wanted to love me, and you're the one that said the hurtful thing.
Is the anger good? The anger is not good. I'm not saying the anger is good, but the anger tells us there's a very deep relationship here. I once heard a phrase from a friend of mine. I don't know if it's a popular phrase, but I think it's true. My buddy said to me when we were in high school. He said nobody can get me angry like my mother. You know what I'm talking about? If you're like, you know how sometimes a parent can be so deeply triggering. Why is it that the ones we love are the most triggering to us? Because our anger is an expression of our love. I love you so much. How could you have treated me that way? How could you have said that to me? It's so raw. It's so real. You understand? So obviously, what's the ideal? The ideal is im bechukosay teleicho. What do we want? We want someone who walks in Hashem's ways. What does that mean? Rashi says shetiu amelim beTorah. It means you have to be passionate about your service for Hashem.
That's the highest level. There's a level that you get punished for. There's a level. If you are rebellious, if you are sickened, if you are disgusted by Hashem's laws, you get punished for that. But there is something beautiful about that because why is a person so sickened? Why is a person so disgusted by Hashem's laws? It's because it has to be more meaningful. This has to be meaningful. There's something when a person is disgusted and sickened that means there's a relationship there. At least you're disgusted and sickened. We expect that the word of God should trigger us in some way. It was a beautiful line from Rav Aaron Lichtenstein. It was the Rosh Yeshiva of Gush. I love this line. He says, if Judaism is true, it should mean everything to you. If you believe that Judaism is true, then what choice do you have but to be passionate about it?
If you're not passionate about your Yiddishkeit, something is very off. If this is true, then you should live it with your whole being. It should be something that's vibrant to you. You know what the worst thing is? The worst thing is not hatred. The worst thing is indifference. The worst thing is that if you're just totally out to lunch, I just don't care I just don't care. Person wakes up in the morning, they just don't care. That's the worst thing. Because you're saying you just don't matter to me. A husband and a wife that fight, there's something beautiful about that, no? Because at least they're still fighting for each other. Even though on the outside Even though on the outside it's local kachtof. Even though on the outside it's not something very beautiful. Who wants to hear a couple yelling at each other? Who wants to see a couple fighting? Obviously, that's not so nice. It's not good. It means there's something off in the relationship.
But at least you cared enough to fight. What happens to a couple that stops fighting? That's the worst thing in the world. Many years ago, we had a boy who came to yeshiva. In the second week of yeshiva, the first week of yeshiva, he sat down with me and he said, "I'm going through a lot. My parents got divorced this past year." So I was just schmoozing with him. I asked him one of the questions I asked him. I don't know why I asked that. I said, "Did you see it coming?" He goes, "No, I never saw it coming. My parents never fought. I thought they had the perfect marriage." In my head, I didn't say this to him because I wouldn't have wanted to hurt him. But in my head, I said,"If your parents never fought, they didn't have the perfect marriage. Parents fight. Normal people fight. They get triggered by each other. The love that we have sometimes comes out in the wrong way. But at least we care enough to fight. If you have a couple that doesn't fight anymore, you know what that means? It means they don't even care enough to fight.
That's not good. Look how the Torah spells it out for us. The first thing: Are you passionate about my mitzvos? Do you wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm here to serve Hashem today'? That's the highest level. There's a second level. The second level, also again, a very—it's a low level, but at least there's something to it. I'm disgusted by Hashem's mitzvos, but at least you care enough to be disgusted. It's not the optimal. You get punished for it, but it's at least indicative that there's a relationship. You know what the worst punishment is? The imtelchu imi keri. If you treat Hashem like he's nothing in your life, if everything is happenstance, if it's indifferent, I don't really care about it. It's not important to me. Unfortunately, lo aleinu, we see this in today's day and age. You should know it wasn't the way that our grandparents lived. It wasn't the way that our great grandparents lived.
There were people you should know that in Europe they were passionate about their service of Hashem. They were in Europe before the Holocaust. These people were simple Jews. They didn't grow up in yeshivas. They didn't have seminaries. But they cared. They really cared. And then there were people that they threw their tefillin off the boat after the Holocaust when they were coming to America. They left their tefillin behind or threw their tefillin off the boat. They said, "I'm not interested in this anymore." If you were walking down the street, if an Orthodox Jew was walking down the street And one of these post-Holocaust Jews saw them, you should know they were meyuridic angry. It was upsetting to them. The notion that people would still be Orthodox. Why would you want to have anything to do with this God? Look what God did. Why would you want to have anything to do with this God?
And they would be upset about it. There's something. Again, I don't want Chassid Shalom. I'm not saying it's good to be upset. But I'm saying there's something very beautiful about it. At least they cared enough to be upset. We've noticed something in the recent history, and I don't think it's an accident. Today, the avoda is: if we deal with angry kids, we know what to do. If a girl is rebellious, if a girl says I hate this. If you hate it, gavaldik. If you hate it, that means you love it. So let's talk about it. As a guy once came to yeshiva, he said to me, I hate Gemara. I said, Wow, you love Gemara. He goes, I just told you I hate Gemara. I said, It's amazing how much you love Gemara. He goes, What are you not hearing? I told you I hate Gemara. I said, Why do you hate it? He said, It's so bad. I said, So then feel nothing about it. He said, No, it drives me crazy. I said, So you love it.
By the way, by the end of his shnabet, he was totally into Gemara. It bothered him because he couldn't translate it, because he couldn't punctuate it, because he didn't vowelize the words. He didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't know how to learn. So it drove him crazy. A girl comes to seminary and she says, I hate that she'er. Wow, you must really love it. You must really love it because hate is the opposite of love. We used to see these boys come to Eretz Yisrael. There were yeshivas here in Eretz Yisrael back in the day. The biggest thugs would come to these yeshivas. Not like today, thugs. Today you don't develop thugs anymore because every kid is just on their phone. I'm talking about guys back in the day that in town they would chant. I'm not even going to say the yeshiva's name. They would chant their yeshiva's name. They would go like, if two kids were brawling, so one of them would call out his yeshiva's name, and the whole yeshiva would come running, and then the other kid would chant out his yeshiva's name, and that whole yeshiva would come running to be a brawl right in the center of Krak Square.
And it was like these kids were mamish thugs, and a lot of those kids became very big bnei taira. To me, it's a joke when I'm walking around in this neighborhood in Ramat Hashkol and in Sanhedria Morchevet. I remember half of these guys. They were the biggest psychopaths. They've been learning in Kibbutz for 27 years now. These guys are serious, serious talmidei chachamim. You know why? Because they hated it. So he said, you hated it. So we could turn that around. We could turn it into love. You know the avodah of working with kids today is much harder. Because they're indifferent to everything. Nothing matters. Who could develop? I'm not the guy who blames everything on technology. I just want to say a simple thing. Who could develop a love for anything if you spend 12 hours a day on your screen? That's an avodah of indifference.
That's a person who's zoned out of life. We don't know what to do with those kids. We don't mind Lebedik kids. We don't mind ADHD kids. The kid that drives you crazy is ultimately the kid that's going to give you more nachas than anybody. The kid that Pasha doesn't care. We don't know what to do with you. We don't know what to do with you. If a kid is indifferent, how do you turn them on? I know how to turn a kid around. How do you take something where there's no fire and light a fire? You have a fire. You hate it. You're disgusted by it. Givaldik. But to take something that's absolutely indifferent and to light a fire, we don't know how to do it. It's a very difficult thing. The challenge of technology today is not wasting time. It's not even what you're looking at when you're on the internet.
It's people who are absolutely zoned out of life. There's nobody home. There's no passion. There's no anything. We don't mind. We don't mind it if you're passionate. A guy yells at me and shares, and he's fighting with me all day long. I'm happy. I'm happy. I love it. You're fighting with me, Givaldik. There are some rebbeim. I think I even know one or two that teach here. There are some rebbeim that love the fight. They even say things just to get you riled up. I'm not saying. I'm just saying. If you know what I'm saying, I'm sure you can all imagine who I'm talking about. There are some teachers. They say something and they say it in the most extreme way, just so that a girl can go, "I hate that." Oh, you hate that? Givaldik, let's talk. It's the worst thing in the world when you have somebody who says, "I just don't care enough to fight with you." That's what it means. In tehchuim v'karei, you didn't care enough to show up. You didn't care enough to be real.
You didn't care enough. You wasted your time. You went through the year and it was all just indifferent. It was all just cute. It was a little tayul that you took. You got to spend another year in Eretz Yisrael. A year in Yerushalayim. It's a very sweet thing. Baruch Hashem, you got to spend the year in Eretz Yisrael. You fooled yourself. You came. What do you mean? I came to seminary. You came, not you. If a girl comes and she says, Yeah, I'm here. What was your year? What was your growth? What was your walking? Where did you walk? So in b'chukosai telecho, we have girls that kam baruch Hashem, they're passionate, they're putting their all in, and you could tell. The change is very radical; it's very fast, and I don't mean that in an unhealthy way. You could see from September to January, you're talking about different people, people that have grown tremendously. Then there are the girls that they came for the fight. Rabbi Sharfman makes a rule; they go against the rule. They don't want to get caught. They get caught. It's a conversation. It's a stupid way you have to do this to me. Those you see also baruch Hashem, tremendous change.
But if you didn't care enough, if you showed up and you just showed up, you were here, you are a blob You're a blob. So then it's like chaval for your life. How do you turn somebody? How is that person going to be a mother? How's that person going to be a wife? I'm not giving mussar. I'm saying a real thing. I'm saying that if worse, this thing with the AirPods, I'm not joking. This thing that we walk around with AirPods on is a disease. It's a disease. We can't. It creates. I know that's like the classic cliche thing to say. We're going to disconnect to connect. I saw in New Jersey just now a whole bunch of yeshivas and I think there were some girls' schools also that joined in this. They made a thing. We're not allowing kids to bring phones into schools anymore. They're going to check it at the door when they get in. All of them got together. TABC and MTA and Frisch and I, my note, they all got together. I saw a letter and I think more schools. They all got together. Say we're not allowing phones in schools anymore. I want to tell you what's going to happen. The kids are going to complain for a week and then they're going to realize it's the best thing that ever happened to them.
There are camps that are phone free. Kids come back from the summer. They said it was the best summer ever. Why? Because they were alive. But you know, it's a good thing when you see kids fighting in the halls. In boys' schools, that's what happens. In high schools, you just see kids fighting in the halls. I'm not saying it's a good thing that they're fighting. I'm saying at least they care enough to fight. I walked through some schools today, in between classes. You know what it looks like? They have the lockers on the side of the wall, and all the kids are sitting with their AirPods in, every kid is on his phone. It's a line of kids sitting next to each other, and they're not present with each other. So, how do we create Lebedeka children? There's one. I'll finish with this story. I'm a very big fan of Rav Daniel Kalish from Waterbury. I think he's a very special person. I think he's changing the world of Chinuch.
So I was listening to one of the shiurim that he gave, or maybe it was a podcast that he did. He was talking about how Waterbury goes up to a camp. They go to a camp, and there's a person who runs this camp. In the morning they woke up, and Rabbi Kalish said to Rabbi Kalish, it was a good night. The lake is still in its place. They didn't mean the boys didn't drain the lake and bring it somewhere else. And Rabbi Kalish was laughing. Baruch Hashem, the lake is still in its place. I like that because it's a group of boys that would, if they could, move the lake to a different place. They would, if they could. There's a very famous maggid shir today. His name is Rabbi Eli Stepansky. He's probably giving the largest shir in the world now. He gives a dafyomi shir. He has fifty thousand people that listen to his dafyomi shir a day. Fifty thousand people, thirty-five thousand Americans, fifteen thousand Israelis. I think those are the numbers. It's unbelievable. Fifty thousand people a day. He said a story that when he was in camp, there was a kid that wasn't waking up in the morning when he was like a kid himself. They had a horse on the campus. He brought the horse into the bunk, and he put the horse's face right next to the kid that was sleeping.
I want you to know, you could have predicted that one day he would be the biggest maggid shir in the world. The crazy kid that brings the horse into the bunk one day will be the crazy kid that gives the dafyomi shir to fifty thousand people. We see Lebedik people, we get excited by Lebedik people. We're robbing people of their life. When you're zoned in, if your screen time is 10 to 12 hours a day, you're not alive. You're not a human being. I know I'm saying it in an extreme way. I mean it. People think I'm saying it in a cliche way. I mean every word I'm saying. We're robbing people of their lives. People say, 'What am I going to do without my phone?' You know what you're going to do? You're going to talk to a human being. And you're going to talk, and there's going to be friction, and there's going to be fights, and it's going to be good. Because you're not going to tune out every chance you get, because life doesn't work that way.
So what's the optimal in b'chukosai telecha? You were passionate about your yiddishkeit. That's what we hope for. What's this? What's not good, but at least it's something we could work with. You cared enough to hate. What's the worst thing? The worst thing is to live a life of indifference. To live a life without passion. If you're not passionate about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's the big Hakadosh Baruch Hu says I have to wake you up. I'm going to send you seven times the punishment. Why? Because I have to do something in your life to wake you up. I have to do something in your life. To say, let's go, let's do something. I have to create some friction that we could create a fire. Girls, it's a big avoda in life. It's a today in today's day and age. Used to be people were passionate. They would say, I don't believe in Judaism. I believe in communism. I don't believe in Judaism. I believe in socialism. Today, a kid says, I don't believe in Judaism. I believe in Judaism. What can I do? I'm addicted to my phone. I believe in it. I just don't care. That's the most painful thing in the world. That's the biggest avoda for us to overcome. At least to be passionate about something. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.
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