Use Your Talents to Serve Hashem

 Use Your Talents to Serve Hashem

It states in the Aseres לא תשא ,(20:6 Shemos (HaDibros שם ה' אלקיך לשוא כי לא ינקה ה' את carry t’Don ",אשר ישא שמו לשוא Hashem's name in vain because Hashem will not forgive those who carry His name in vain." The Netziv zt’l explains that this pasuk refers to the unique talents that Hashem grants each individual. Some sing well, and some excel in teaching Torah, while others are talented storytellers, and so on. The talent is 'ה שם, Hashem's name. The Torah says that one mustn't carry his talent לשוא, for no כי לא ינקה ה' את אשר ישא .purpose לשוא שמו, Hashem won't forgive him for doing so. 

Where Your Heart Pulls You How does one identify his life mission? 

We discussed that one should utilize his unique talents, but that isn't all. Another way is to see what you enjoy doing and where your heart pulls you. Hashem placed this desire into your heart because He wants you to excel in that realm. The Netziv (Haamek Davar 15:39) writes, "If someone will ask you: Which approach of Torah study should I follow, and which mitzvos should I focus on the most? Reply (Koheles 11:9), your Follow ',והלך בדרך לבך heart.' The place where your heart pulls you is a sign that your mazal understands this is a good path for your soul."  Rav Biderman, bemidbar 5783

https://sephardic.org/weekly-perasha/erev-rosh-chodesh-sivan-1

Do work you enjoy

 

Duties of the Heart, Fourth Treatise on Trust 3:26 (sefaria.org)

ולכל אדם יש חפץ במלאכה או סחורה מבלתי זולתה כבר הטביע האל לה בטבעו אהבה וחבה וכן בשאר החיים כמו שהטביע בטבע החתול צידת העכברים ובטבע הנץ צידת מה שראוי לו מן העוף ובטבע האיל צידת הנחשים. וכן יש מן העופות שיצודו הדגים לבד וכן בטבע מין ומין ממיני החיים נטיה ותאוה אל מין ממיני הצמחים והחיים הטבע עליו להיות סבה למזונו ותכונת גופו ואבריו ראויין לדבר ההוא כפה הארך והשוק הארך לעוף שהוא צד את הדגים וכשן והצפרן החזק לארי והקרנים לשור ולאיל ואשר תוכן מזונו מן הצמח לא נתן לו כלי הציד והטרף.

Every man has a preference for a particular work or business over others. G-d has already implanted in his nature a love and fondness for it, as He implanted in a cat's nature the hunting of mice, or the falcon to hunt smaller birds, the deer to trap snakes. Some birds hunt only fish, and likewise, each animal species has a liking and desire for particular plants or animals, which G-d has implanted to be the means for its sustenance, and the structure of its body and limbs is suited for that thing. The long bill and legs of a fish catching bird, or the strong teeth and claws of the lion, horns of the ox and ram (i.e. for defense - TL), while animals whose sustenance is from plants do not have the tools to hunt and kill.

ועל הדמיון הזה תמצא מדות בני אדם וגופותם מוכנות לסחורות ולמלאכות. ומי שמוצא במדותיו וטבעו כסף אל מלאכה מהמלאכות ויהיה גופו ראוי לה ויוכל לסבל את טרחה יחזר עליה וישים אותה סבה להבאת מזונו ויסבל מתקה ומרירותה ואל יקוץ כשימנע ממנו הטרף בקצת העתים אך יבטח באלהים שיספיק לו טרפו כל ימי חייו. ויכון בטרדת לבו וגופו בסבה מן הסבות והסבוב עליה לעמד במצות הבורא שצוה האדם להתעסק בסבות העולם כעבודת האדמה וחרישתה וזריעתה כמו שכתוב (בראשית ב טו) ויקח ה׳ ‎‎אלהים את האדם ויניחהו בגן עדן לעבדה ולשמרה, ולהשתמש בשאר בעלי חיים בתועלותיו ומזוניו ובנין המדינות והכנת המזונות ולהשתמש בנשים ולבעל אותן להרבות הזרע

Similarly you will find among human beings character traits and body structures suited for certain businesses or activity. One who finds his nature and personality attracted to a certain occupation, and his body is suited for it, that he will be able to bear its demands - he should pursue it, and make it his means of earning a livelihood, and he should bear its pleasures and pains, and not be upset when sometimes his income is withheld, rather let him trust in G-d that He will support him all of his days. And he should have intention when his mind and body is occupied with one of the means of earning a living to fulfill the commandment of the Creator to pursue the means of the world, such as working the land, plowing and sowing it, as written "And G-d took the man and placed him in Gan Eden to work it and to guard it" (Bereishis 2:15), and also to use other living creatures for his benefit and sustenance, and for building cities and preparing food, and to marry a woman and have relations to populate the world.

BT yeshiva schedules

 July - Shaar Yeshiva Schedule / Calendar (squarespace.com)

Schedule - Yeshiva Toras Dovid

Letter to a person in kiruv

The goal of a school for baalei teshuva should not be an "introduction to limud HaTorah" unless the BT has already been introduced to concepts of faith and to the life of mitzvos. Ours is not a religion of studying alone. “The sum of the matter, everything having been heard, fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the entire man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13) The Vilna Gaon said, “Just as the prime purpose of a tree is its fruit, so is the study of Torah secondary to its fulfillment. Only the fulfillment of mitzvos qualifies a man as one of the righteous upon whom the world depends.” (Even Sheleimah 5:6)

The average frum from birth yeshiva man grew up with mitzvos. He started slowly and gradually over his youth took them on. Now he focuses on Gemara learning. Too often, usually, the BT yeshiva rabbi sees a 25-year-old Jewish man and says, well at 25 I focused all day long on Gemara so that's what I'll tell this BT to do. Isn't that what 25 year old Jewish men are supposed to do? Well, no it isn't, not in this case because that would constitute skipping over the 20 years of chinuch that the rabbi got prior to his focus on Gemara learning. The typical guy who walks into a BT yeshiva or gal who walks into a seminary may have committed him or herself to the religious life but probably knows very little about Hashem and very little about mitzvos. As Rabbi Avigdor Miller said, "You can't have yiras shemayim without shemayim." You have teach about God. And you have to teach about mitzvos because God commands us to do them as we see on every page of Chumash. Teaching it is a very tricky business, because this person is an adult and a child at the same time. You can't just give him candies and simple explanations. But you can't overwhelm him either. With that said, I looked over your schedule. Some good variety there. Duties of the Heart, Tanya, Mishnayos, Bitachon, and Hebrew. It is essential to teach the Hebrew language and grammar, not via titching but actual classes in grammar. You appear to be doing that. Very good. However, you need classes in halacha and mitzvos. If you teach people about hell but don't show how halacha works, they are going to be afraid of their own shadows. They'll tremble at the thought that they might breath in molecules of chometz during Pesach as they sit in the Beis Midrash. One can't live like that, in terror, and many have stopped being religious because they weren't taught how to approach the halacha. I'm not talking about a shiur where the Mishneh Breruah is read to them. Rather, it must be topical, a discussion of various topics in halacha with an emphasis on the practical as well as how halacha works. What is chumrah? What is heter? What do we do with different opinions? What is minhag? What are poskim? How do we get from Chumash, to Gemara, to Shulchan Aruch, to contemporary poskim? Also, night seder should be optional. You can't go from smart phones and bacon to sitting all day and night in the beis midrash. It's too much. People crack up from being overwhelmed. I have witnessed this with my own eyes many times! Is your Gemara shiur two hours long or is it part shiur part prep and review? A two hour shiur is way too much for BTs. I hope also that your yeshiva doesn't disparage the outside world day and night, calling everything narishkite. That also makes people crack up. Focus on the positive. If a guy played baseball his whole life you can't tell him baseball is narishkite. If he worked hard to get into college you can't disparage colleges wholesale. Some criticisms are Ok but only some. Be positive. It should go without saying, that nobody should be disparaging Chassidus or Modern Orthodoxy. "Educate the lad according to his way." For most BTs, Modern Orthodoxy is the most sensible path, even if some of it offends the sensibilities of the Rosh Yeshiva. Certainly, nobody should be discouraged from becoming Chassidic, even Chabad. I know people who were discouraged from being Chabad at the BT program at your school and they suffered terribly in their lives from having being pushed off the path that was right for them. How do I know all this? How do I dare to offer my view? Because I am a BT of many years and I know so many casualties, so many ruined lives. All my fingers and toes are not enough to count them all. And every one of them got ruined in a school for BTs. They walk out of the yeshiva and you have no idea what happened to them. You focus on the new guy. Well, I know these people, have visited them in their basement apartments, watched them eating on Yom Kippur. It didn't have to happen. They were mishandled in almost every case. I was mishandled too by so many people. When I told one Rosh Yeshiva that I needed to get a job (at age 30!) because I needed to buy health insurance, he told me that I didn't need health insurance. If I got sick the community would take care of me. Well, I got sick and the community didn't take care of me. A rabbi at my yeshiva told me I couldn't get a job working 1/2 a day cleaning a shul next door because it would interrupt my Torah study. He even cited the story of Rabbi Akiva and his return home to visit his wife. Meanwhile, the yeshiva was not feeding us, and I had no money for shiduchim. I also didn't own a blanket even though I lived in the New York area with its blistering winters. Meanwhile this rabbi lived in a big house with an indoor succah! These are two of a hundred stories I could tell you of MY experiences with very foolish rabbis at BT schools. I leave you with advice from Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt'l. He said that the goal of the outreach person should be simply to help the newcomer take on the commandments (aka the mitzvos/religious practices). Before you didn’t observe them. Now you do. That’s the major change. The outreach person should not impose conformity or eradicate the essence of the person. Rabbi Kamenetsky said that it is important for the newcomer to feel normal. He said that, for example, the typical newcomer will not feel normal if he does not complete his or her college education. Thus, he or she should not be discouraged from doing so. The implications of his advice are vast. May you be blessed.

NO LEAPFROGGING

“Speak to the kohanim, the sons of Aharon, and say to them: Let none of you defile himself for a dead person among his people” (21:1)

Chazal say that amira refers to soft speech as opposed to dibbur, which refers to harsh speech. Here it says emor el hakohanim because a person should not be burdened in a harsh way and expected to elevate himself and become holy instantaneously. Instead, he should be addressed softly, in the hope that he will become elevated gradually.

In a similar vein, the gemoro says (Chulin 105a) that Mar Ukva called himself “vinegar the son of wine”, meaning to say that he considered himself wicked compared to his father, because his father would wait twenty-four hours between meat and cheese, whereas he would only wait between two meals. Why did he in fact not conduct himself the same way as his father so that he could attain his level? Rav Elya Lopian answered in the name of the Alter of Kelm that Mar Ukva knew that he was not on such a high level that he could wait 24 hours between meat and milk, and there was therefore no point in trying to leapfrog to a level of kedusha that was realistically beyond his reach at that point in time.

In avodas Hashem, it is impossible to leapfrog. The only option is to make step-by-step progress based on one’s current situation and level.

Based on droshos by Maran HaGaon Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita, raavad of Yerushalayim. To receive these weekly divrei Torah email benipray@netvision.net.il.

RAV STERNBUCH’S DIVREI CHIZUK THIS WEEK

How to be kind -- and how to do it wrong

 

everything wrong

I know a guy who says rabbis got everything wrong, every piece of advice, every decree for him. How is that possible? Here's how. There's a loving God in the world. He made nature to provide our basic needs. So if we act naturally, the important areas of life are satisfied whether they be how to earn a living, how to make friends and find a spouse, where to live, and how to approach religion. Instincts drive us to most of what we need. But some rabbis see life as one long exercise in pain. They see their job as telling you no, as contradicting you. They love to give the bad news. So you come with your plans as based on common sense and instinct and they contradict you. So everything goes wrong.