Aish Kodesh, page 210, Stone Chumash page 1024
The first line of Shoftim doesn’t translate well. The word “you” when plural refers to the external community; when it’s singular it refers to the internal world of the individual. The opening lines which tell them to appoint judges and policemen can be read to mean that each one of us should appoint our own internal judges and policemen.
Singular “your” gates are opening in your body (“your” is singular). We need a judge to tell us what is right and a policeman to get us motivated. These are both inside us, states of mind.
The month of Elul initiates a process of intimacy. When you begin the process, you have a goal. The joy you experience in your sukka.
Christians and Muslims got the Meshiach-ben-Joseph, the stone-in-the-bread meshiach where everyone dies in Armegeddon. They didn’t get the Meshiach-ben-Dovid. How do you get a Moshiach-ben-Dovid who leads us to Shalom?
Elul is called the eyes of the year. The first exercise we have in Elul is to remember what happened during the year that is now ending. Yom Zecharon: the Day of Remembrance. Memory is an extremely valued faculty.
Ain ode mi vado – Nothing exists but G*d. The blessings can be curses and vice versa.
Yosef sees the slightest problem and he judges with a narrow eye, and he’s usually wrong. HaShem says that if we judge by the breadth of a hair, we will be judged by the breadth of a hair.
The reform movement grew out of a messianic movement: Jacob Frank. They wanted a universal temple with no halachic differences. They believed that assimilation would bring the Meshiach; that together the various religions drop their differences and would rebuild the temple, and our combined efforts would bring Meshiach.
First Meshiach-ben-Yosef comes and dies in the conflict, then Meshiach-ben-Dovid comes. This dynamic is really Ruchel v. Leah.
Ruchel called her second baby Son Of My Pain because she died in her pain and didn’t witness the birth. Michael (Saul’s daughter and David’s wife) didn’t have a baby until the day of her death, which can be read to mean either that she died childless or that she died in childbirth. She was a descendant of Ruchel. Michel was contemptuous of Dovid’s dancing.
Yosef was fighting his passion all the time and also judging their (their who?) passion – contemptuously.
David was married to Michel, but Saul, her father, took her away when David fled for his life and married her to Patiel, Joseph’s last gilgul (incarnation). Patiel refrained from consummating the marriage, saving her for David’s return. When David prevailed and took Michel back, Patiel followed behind her, crying. Why? Because with Michel’s being restored to David, he was being deprived of his mitzvah.
Yosef eats alone all the time. At the end, after burying his father, his brothers still believe that he’s going to kill them. At this point he has not overcome his narrow eye; he’s still alone because he judges with a narrow eye.
We are discussing the Messianic process, not the Meshiach.
Aish Kodesh, page 211: I set me before you today a blessing and a curse. The Aish Kodesh asks, “How do you know which is which?” Joseph thinks the way it looks is the way it is.
How can you tell the difference?
1. Extrapolate ahead to the future
2. Identify the voices in your head that are whispering to you.
Ana Bekoach can be translated:
I beg you untie the bundled sins
Or
Unite the twisted fate.
Elul is called I am my beloved and my beloved is mine: this implies face to face.
Hashmal (electricity):
Silent cutting
Dynamic movement
This zapped Oozah, the man who touched the Ark when Yosef was bringing it back to Jerusalem.
Bris: The mouth gives the seed
of thoughts. The sex organ gives seed.
How could we ever say pain concealed G-d’s face? This is killing G*d. After
the Holocaust, Jews who couldn’t connect pain and G*d said G*d is dead.
Projective reality is when Joseph snitches on his brothers. He’s not comfortable
with his own limitations. You can see this when his gilgul puts his eyes out.
G*d said, “You’re not getting the point.” At the end, Joseph said, “I always
wanted to be the head of the fox, but it’s better to be the tail of the lion.”
G*d said, “Don’t worry so much – I’m your collateral.”
When Michel was contemptuous of David, the marriage of Yehuda and Dovid couldn’t
happen.
Shoftim, page 212
Be guileless. The fox is full of guile.
The survivors made a lot of money after the Holocaust because there was a
selection process. For 2,000 years we learned to be full of guile to survive.
Those full of guile survived the Holocaust. Can you switch gears? Be full
of guile in a world of Nazis and businessmen, and be without guile for G*d?
The moral context is a language and you have to speak the language. If someone
is trying to cheat you, you need guile, otherwise you’re stupid.
There is a great deal of pressure in Judaism to be an honest businessman.
There is a story about a man who saw someone he owed money to going through
the garbage looking for food. He also saw the Germans coming. Despite this,
he ran into the danger and paid the man, risking his life.
Make G*d the loving parent to repair the mistrust of the original parent.
RE-PAIR-ENT.
There is only one mitzvah that says we can’t project into the future: Shabbos.
The first thing we need to do to accomplish this is to stop talking about
the future on Shabbos. The object is to not think about the future.
Guileless means simple and pure.
Oozah (the man who died saving the ark) forgot that although it looked as
if the Levites were carrying the ark, the ark was really carrying them.
This is like the story of footsteps in the sand. A man looks back on his life
and sees two sets of footprints, his and G*d’s. But he sees that in the difficult
times there is only one set of footprints. He reproaches G*d: “Where were
you when my life was so difficult? Why weren’t you with me?” G*d answers,
“You don’t understand. Those are my footprints. I was carrying you.”
Oozah was projecting in the future. David realized that he had to plunge into
the present to bring the ark into Jerusalem, so he danced. Dancing was plunging
into the present. Michel didn’t understand this.
Shabbos: You can’t hear HaShem in the world if your things are still running.
To see the deep good that’s inside the rule to not push the button (as in
refraining from turning the light or appliances on or off) is to counter habit.
Expansive: looking for the truth in the treasure house of the king. Becoming
G*d’s child. Seeing the deep good.
Contractive: Being a good servant, doing what you’re told to do (when you
wake up with the flu and don’t care).
Moshe says he’s of stopped lips, but the Torah is all of Moses’s speech. The
only mute person was Aaron (when his sons died and he was silent).
If they can’t hear me, it’s like I’m not speaking.
Every time Moses got angry, he lost the power of speech. (third paragraph
on page 213)
David turns __________________ into simcha by dancing.
You have to go down to where the people are.
The Aish Kodesh said to the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, “If you can be bigger
people, I can grow.” He was not lecturing, nor was he glib. He said that the
students have to draw the teaching out of the teacher. Rabbi Gavriel says
the audience has to draw the music out of the musicians.
He’s using guileless as a code word for Shabbos: Be present, not moralizing.
Take everything as a lesson from G*d: no fear, just acceptance.
Use Shabbos mode when visiting Steve. Shabbos mode is something that can be
turned on at will. It’s a state of mind, not a time.
David had to slow things down, offering a sacrifice every six paces – slow
down your wagon.
We have to practice accepting what happens.