Ki Tavo ~ Aish Kodesh 08/26/2010

Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman

Index of Rabbi Hoffman's Audio Files August 26, 2010 Parsha Ki Tavo We are still talking about the parsha of last week. The first line says that we go out to war and the last line is Amalak. This month we hope that HaShem will give us courage. ROSH HASHANAH: Everybody in the world is affected by my choice. I am only dust and ashes. We are subjected to material judgment. SHAVUOS: We are subjected to spiritual judgment. STEP ONE: DICHOTOMY: this is either/or, which never works. One example is when people who are ill keep going back and forth between accepting death and going into hospice, palliative care, comfort, or trying another medical treatment. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Twerski dealt with this when he and his wife had two different thoughts on the matter. STEP TWO: SYNTHESIS: I have to be able to see both sides at the same time. They both come from the same place: HaShem. Rabbi Hoffman tells the story about a man who died on an Outward Bound trip in a freak accident when Rabbi Hoffman was 18. The captive woman is your soul, which cries when it comes into the world and cries when it goes out of the world. THE FOUR SONS using the four different translations of ROSH HASHANAH: THE WISE SON is the SLEEPING HEAD. He is concerned about the law when he asks about the dessert, but he is not concerned with the choice. His attitude is: Tell me the rule and I will follow it. THE EVIL SON, THE RASHA is the HEAD THAT HAS A TOOTH AND WANTS TO BITE. He says: I am angry and I do not want an empty seder. Your response should be to knock his teeth out or CLARIFY his teeth. When you bite something, you are chewing it over, clarifying it. This is where choice comes in. The place of choice is the place of battle. We have to learn to enjoy this. The TAM, the SIMPLE SON: THE HEAD THAT LEARNS. The biggest miracle is if one person changes one habit. What are the frontline conflicts in your life and how can you raise them up? Story about $10k. Recommended book: You Are What You Hate: A Spiritually Productive Approach to Enemies, by Sarah Yehudit Schneider. We can use family members to help us see ourselves. Story about the man who wanted to know who his seat-mate in Shamayim would be. He looks for Moisheleh at Lvov. It turns out Moisheleh is having a wedding and all the poor people are invited on behalf of Eliahu the Prophet. Before the chupa, a young man in rags comes in crying. When asked by Moisheleh, he explains that he and the kallah were engaged as children, but the engagement was broken by the father of the kallah when the father of the young man declared bankruptcy. Moisheleh asks the kallah, who agrees that she and the young man are bershert. Moishe and his son talk and agree that the ragged young man should marry the kallah. When he returned, someone asks the rabbi if Moish is worthy of being his seat-mate, and Moish responds: I do not know if I am worthy of sitting next to HIM. You do not just happen to get up to the level that Moishe had achieved. Also you can do a spiritual journey and leave everyone behind. This time of year a good thing to do is a teshuva project, such as planning something with your spouse. Because of the friction between parents in the story of the captive woman, they could not speak with one voice and the child learned manipulation. We know this because it says he would not listen to the voice of the father or to the voice of his mother. The rebellious son is hanged not for what he did but for what he WILL DO. [TRF: in direction contradiction to the midrash that says that HaShem would not Ishmael to die of thirst in the desert because he had not yet sinned.] NOTE: the story of the rebellious son is meant to provoke thought and teach a certain dynamic; never was a son put to death for being rebellious. When the body of the son is hanging, the father has to look at what he was responsible for. The mitzvah of returning the lost ox: this means not to draw the shade, as the Germans did when the Jews were being arrested. Do not turn your face aside and pretend not to see. Do not separate from other people. HaShem and Moshe both said: I will create a world and then leave. NOTE: HaShem did not actually leave; HaShem became hidden in the world. On his trip to the Ukraine where so many Jews were murdered, Rabbi Hoffman expected to experience a lot of anti-Semitism, but he had lost items returned to him. What makes you happier than having a lost item returned? Judaism is the only legal system in the world that requires this. You are liable if you do not return a lost item. Every mitvah grapples with home and inspiration. It is an opportunity to grapple with oneself. The mitzvah of wearing separate clothing: men and women are different. This mitzvah speaks to gender integrity. On some kibbutzim, people did not even have personal clothing. The mitvah of chasing away the mother bird: This mitzvah is connected with honoring parents in that for both there is a promise of having a good and long life. Elisha ben Abuya, a student of Rabbi Akiva, watched a boy chase away a bird and then die, and he lost is faith, concluding that G*d does not have any power on Earth. The mitzvah of building a fence around the roof tells us not to take unnecessary risks. The mitzvah of not mixing plowing animals: maintain integrity of differences. Shatnes: do not mix linen and wool. One is Cain, one is Abel. Do not defame a married woman: allegations of no blood on the sheets. Usury: institutions can charge interest. Accurate weights: If you cheat, you act as if HaShem was not watching. Also, cheating manifesting the beliefs that G*d will not provide what you need and that G*d is not in control; not trusting the future. First fruits: sign of hope. SACRED FIRE, PAGE 121 What did the snake do? Seduce, manipulate, place a stumbling block in the path of the blind, gossip, destroy shalom bayit. [The yetzer hara could bring elevation to the soul.] You are what you hate. The wolf, the lion, tear and eat. The snake (which is the Nazi), tear for the hell of it. They made war on the dead, turned headstones into paving stones. The biter of the snake is revealed as coming straight from G*d because it makes no sense in the logical world. If the snake has great potential for evil, it has great potential for good. A reminder not to dichotomize. Moshe is the Aish Kodesh, he is in dialogue with himself. A grateful leader and an embittered leader. I am present and thankful and asking G*d: do you mistreat this people? Every rabbi needs to ask questions of G*d and argue with G*d. The strong arm against Pharaoh was the fire-bombing of Dresden. It was totally uncalled for; it was not a military target. [TRF: it is a counter-balance to the unreasonableness of the biting snake. 1945 No great tyranny has ever prospered; they all hold sway and breathe fire and pass into oblivion. Normal Corwin. What a memory Martha has. Here is the entire quote from http://www.otrr.org/FILES/Magz_pdf/Illustrated%20Press/IP_00_04_279.pdf: The Wartime RadioPlays of Norwin Corwin By Lance Hunt (Continued from the March Issue) ON A NOTE OF TRIUMPH-First broadcast on May 8, 1945 after announcement of the end of the conflict in Europe. This work will probably become Corwin's most famous radio piece. Inspirational, it is uncomplicated while still creating a tapestry of the war and the resultant jubilation that one phase of it was over. The program was commissioned by the Columbia Broadcasting Co. (with an advance kind of journalistic predictability) late in 1944. Corwin, in a preface to a Simon and Schuster edition (which sold 50,000 copies in two weeks) said the work was not a poem. But John Mason Brown in the Saturday Review found the script "with its Whitmanesque cadences ... a newsreel in words of war emotions, battle reasons and peace hopes. .. an important and stirring statement." (Corwin introduced his published script with a Whitman quote "Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day.") The radio production was aided significantly by the authoritative, stentorian tones of its narrator, Martin Gabel, (who sounds somewhat like Orson Welles) and the stirring and dramatic music of Bernard Hermann. (Hermann especially was favored by Corwin for many of his productions.) After the broadcast, CBS, New York received 1,000 phone calls and in Hollywood, 1,600 calls. Corwin's piece today is as he states "more than an artifact in the archeology of radio." Its significance lies in its simple compassion and empathy for those affected by the war and its reverberations through history. It can especially be used today to inform new generations as to what an armed conflict in your backyard can produce: "And how do you think those lights look in Europe after five years of blackout, going on to six? Brother, pretty good. Pretty good, sister. The kids of Poland will soon know what an orange tastes like. And the smell of honest-to-God bread freshly made and sawdust-free will create a stir in the streets of Athens." Fresh bread (a smell), an orange (a taste) and lights again (a sight), the simple sensual images of everyday pleasures restored and brought home to the average radio listener involved in the great conflict. His philosophy on tyrannical leadership: "No great tyranny has ever lasted. The empires of Pharaoh, Caesar, Philip, Napoleon, Hitler-each flourished, and held sway, and was destroyed. They were powerful, but all of them forgot one thing: that the only civilization which can endure is a free one ... " From http://www.otrr.org/FILES/Magz_pdf/Illustrated%20Press/IP_00_04_279.pdf Go to this page for the full article. Rabbi Henoch Dov teaches in Denver, Colorado. You can contact him through his web page, www.RabbiHenochDov.com or via email sh6r6v4t9@aol.com.

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