haber@sunybcs.UUCP (Rabbi Yaacov Haber) (10/06/86)
ROSH HASHANA 5746
Rabbi Tanchum said: "If someone, who has recited the Shema
every day of his life, misses it just one evening, it is as
if he has never said the shma at all. (Berakhot, 63a).
Imagine that! Here is someone, aged perhaps 85, who has
faithfully said the Shema every day since before his Bar
Mitzva (and how many of us can say that we have done that?),
and he feels under the weather just one evening and skips
it, and he's blown the lot! A lifetime of reciting the
Shema wasted!
How can we understand this? The Dubnow Magid explains it
with an analogy. In parts of Europe, before the advent of
the telephone or telegraph, it was the custom to transmit
messages quickly from town to town by having a chain of men
on mountain tops stretching from one town to the other,
shouting the message down the line. As we know, there was a
similar arrangement in Israel at the time of the Second
Temple, to spread news of the date of the new month, by
lighting fires on successive mountain tops. Anyway, suppose
we have a chain of fifty men on mountain tops from one town
to the next, and one man in the chain does not shout the
message, or light the fire, when it is his turn. We can't
say: Well, it's only one man out of fifty, the message
system is still 98% perfect. The failure of that one man
spoils it for everyone else, before and after him, down the
line. So it is with that one missed recitation of the
Shema.
On Rosh Hashana we recite Psalm 24, which includes the line:
"Who may climb the mountain of G-d, and who may stand in the
place of His holiness?" The Baalei Mussar explain this in
the following way. There are two stages in attaining new
levels of observance. The first ("climbing the mountain of
G-d") involves trying out a new mitzva, and the second
("standing in the place of His holiness") involves constancy
in its performance. The first stage corresponds to having a
spiritual high, which most of us have had at some time or
other. Such highs may last a few minutes, or a few months.
They are valuable for giving us a taste of new levels of
observance. But the important thing in Judaism, in the long
run, is not such spiritual highs, but constancy in our
observances. How do we reach this second stage? The best
way is to make a commitment.
There seems to be an attitude prevalent in the modern world,
certainly in America, of not making commitments, of keeping
one's options open, of holding back as long as possible. I
know many people who come to minyan for a week or two, and
then drop out for a month or so, and then reappear at
minyan, and so on. Imagine someone who wanted to boil water
to make tea, but instead of boiling it for ten minutes at a
stretch, he boiled it for one minute, then let it cool for
an hour, then boiled it for another minute, and so on. At
the end of ten hours he still wouldn't have boiling water!
In my classes, I have noticed that one mitzva which always
goes down well is the mitzva of avoiding making oaths.
("Will you come to mincha tomorrow?" "B'li neder!") This is
an important mitzva, but I get the feeling that people
sometimes use it to avoid making commitments. Perhaps that
is why the Kol Nidre prayer is so popular!
According to the Torah once you make a commitment for some
greater level of observance, whether it be spending more
time learning, or more time visiting the sick, or stricter
Shabbos observance, or whatever it is, you immediately get
the reward for it, even before you have started performing
the mitzva, provided the commitment was sincere.
Now, in the period of the Ten Days of Penitence leading up
to Yom Kippur, is the time to search our souls and see what
new commitments we should make. I am not asking for the
impossible. Everyone knows what mitzvos they are ready to
accept, and what level of observance they are ready for.
May you all be inscribed and sealed for a good year:
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Rabbi Yaacov Haber
Torah Center of Buffalo
1695 Hertel Ave.
Buffalo, NY 14216
Tel. (716) 833-7881
CSNet: haber@buffalo.csnet
UUCP: ...!{decvax,watmath,ihnp4!kitty}!sunybcs!haber
Bitnet: haber@sunybcsdzoey@umd5 (Joe Herman) (10/08/86)
Rabbi Haber <haber@sunybcs> writes: > ROSH HASHANA 5746 > >Rabbi Tanchum said: "If someone, who has recited the Shema >every day of his life, misses it just one evening, it is as >if he has never said the shma at all. (Berakhot, 63a). . . >How can we understand this? The Dubnow Magid explains it >with an analogy.... >...suppose we have a chain of fifty men on mountain tops from one town >to the next, and one man in the chain does not shout the >message, or light the fire, when it is his turn. We can't >say: Well, it's only one man out of fifty, the message >system is still 98% perfect. The failure of that one man >spoils it for everyone else, before and after him, down the >line. So it is with that one missed recitation of the >Shema. I have a problem with this. Suppose one day I forget to say the Shema. According to Rabbi Tanchum (and I assume Rabbi Haber), I may as well never say it again. What's the point to saying it, I've alreay blown it. If this were true, no one I know should be saying the Shema. I cannot view each Shema as dependant on the all other Shema's. Every Shema is important, not just the sum of all the Shema's. I understand that the article was really about commitment and the problem that many people face in keeping commitments. But rather than berate people for not being able to keep some commitments, why not try and help them keep those commitments? In todays world, I find it is very hard to make a commitment because I am so unsure of what the future (even the immediate one) will hold. Not only that, by pressuring people into making commitments they are not ready for, or not willing to give freely, you are just asking for that commitment to be broken. > May you all be inscribed and sealed for a good year: Ditto! :-) > CSNet: haber@buffalo.csnet > UUCP: ...!{decvax,watmath,ihnp4!kitty}!sunybcs!haber > Bitnet: haber@sunybcs Joe Herman DZOEY@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU {seismo, allegra, inhp4}!umcp-cs!cvl!umd5!dzoey HERMAN@UMDD.BITNET -- "Everything is wonderful until you know something about it."