We are now in the Season of Teshuva (repentance). Next Shabbos
is Rosh Chodesh Elul, but – after all
– the entire summer is a time of teshuva.
Is this not what The Three Weeks are all about?
“The objective of the
fast is to arouse the heart to focus on the steps [necessary] for teshuva. This
shall serve as a reminder of our evil deeds as well as the deeds of our
forefathers … to the point that they caused these calamities to befall them and
us….” (Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 121:1)
How do we save ourselves?
Our Rabbis tell us,
“Amar Hakadosh Baruch Hu … So says Hashem: My children, open up for me an
opening like the eye of a needle and in turn I will enlarge it to be an opening
through which wagons can enter.” (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 5:2)
This is tremendously encouraging. It is easy for a sensitive
person to become discouraged. I personally am constantly battling my own sense
that I am failing and that the task is more than I can handle. Well, this is
one of the major tactics of the Yetzer
Hara (the Evil Inclination), which is to discourage us to the point that we
want to give up, G-d forbid.
Hashem tells us: all I need is the tiniest evidence of your
sincere desire to come Home to Me. Just look at yourself honestly. Don’t say
you’re a tzaddik, a righteous person.
If we are “mo’de al ha
emes,” if we speak truth to ourselves, then Hashem will help us expand the
pinpoint of our desire to be close to Him into an opening wide enough for
wagonloads of teshuva and Torah.
I don’t want to dwell unnecessarily on the subject of my
recent illness, but I cannot ignore the lessons I learned from it. How does
cellulitis come into this? The doctors told me that bacteria were probably
introduced under the skin through a tiny hole caused by a needle. I had
received injections a week prior to the infection right next to the area that
later became infected. They were administered by a competent physician, but
this tiny hole was nevertheless sufficient to allow bacteria to enter, and a
potentially serious infection resulted.
My ever-vigilant chavrusa,
Rabbi Shaul Geller, showed me a relevant Rashi on Parshas Masei which discusses how iron is capable of causing death
even in the tiniest quantity of mass. “Iron
can cause death through the smallest amount, even a needle!” (Rashi on Numbers 35:16)
That is exactly what happened to me, some nine hundred years
after Rashi!
This is a powerful metaphor for the Yetzer Hara. All it takes is a tiny opening for the Deadly Enemy to
enter. As King David says, “Who can
discern mistakes? From unperceived faults cleanse me!” (Psalm 19:13) In the
Garden of Eden Chava (Eve) made a “slight” error. She allowed herself to
entertain a “tiny” doubt concerning whether Hashem’s Torah was completely
applicable in all situations. Perhaps she “knew a little better” than Hashem.
From this tiny opening flowed death itself: destruction, war, hatred, sickness,
disease, moral and physical pollution, chaos … all the tzouris the world has known until this very day.
That’s how dangerous a needle can be! One pin-hole can cause
catastrophe.
By exactly the same process, one pin-hole can bring about
salvation!
I have told you before, but it bears repeating: at the age
of twenty-three, when I was a newly-married college student and our world
seemed to be exploding into hopeless chaos, a pinhole provided our means of
salvation. It was 2 a.m. on January 10, 1966, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was
crying alone, my world literally collapsing into a bottomless pit, when a
mental “feather” brushed my face, a “tiny” thought, just a thought. And that
thought was: Perhaps there is a G-d!
Think about it. I did not accept the Torah. I didn’t even
know there was a Torah! I did not want to admit I was a Jew! I was as stubborn
as they come – and probably still am. Check with my wife! – but my world was
collapsing, and in that situation you want to save yourself. So I opened that
pinhole of belief, that tiny entrance which Hashem so graciously, mercifully
and magnificently enlarged until – eight years later, when we met Rebbetzin
Esther Jungreis – it had opened wide enough to admit wagonloads of Torah! Can
we understand the cosmic chessed (kindness)
emanating from the Heaven?
My friends, on Tisha
B’Av we recite a Kinnah composed
by the Maharam of Rothenberg, whose gravesite in Worms, Germany, my wife and I
were privileged to visit. The Maharam writes about the destruction by fire in
Paris of 24 wagonloads of handwritten Gemoras
in the year 5002 (1242). During this same period, terrible pogroms erupted all
over Europe, and two years later there was a massacre by Turkish and Egyptian
troops in Yerushalayim Ir Hakodesh.
(Source: Jewish Timeline Encyclopedia) “Oh
[Torah], consumed by fire, seek the welfare of your mourners, of those who
yearn to lodge in the courtyard of your dwelling …those who yearn to roll in
the dust of [the Holy Land] … those who walk in the darkness of Golus [and]
wait hopefully for the light of day ….” (Kinnah 41)
Amidst the darkness, there is a tiny opening. Even one thought
of teshuva will open the gates!
“For … with fire You
consumed her and with fire You will rebuild her, as it is said, ‘I will be for
her, the words of Hashem, a wall of fire around and I will be glorious in her
midst.’ (Zechariah 2:9). Blessed are You, Hashem, Who consoles Tzion and
rebuilds Yerushalayim.” (Tisha B’Av Mincha Shemoneh Esreh)
May we all soon see the consolation of Yerushalayim!
PICTURE CAPTION
Grave of the Maharam of Rothenburg, Worms, Germany