A Haunting Kol Nidrei

Yom Kippur

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtel (author of Eim Habanim Semeichah) described a Kol Nidrei during the Holocaust, Yom Kippur 1942. He was in Hungary at the time, from where mass deportations wouldn’t begin until 1944, gathered with many others, to one of the only synagogues still functioning in that terrible time. The following is my translation of what appears in Mishneh Sachir, Yom Kippur 5703.

  I am recalling and transcribing in order not to forget what I saw and heard that Yom Kippur. A sight I had never seen before in my life. A vision that was awesome and dreadful, that Yom Kippur night.
  The rabbi came into shul, completely bent over. Bent over from the dread of judgment. But even more contributed to his being hunched over – the pain of our generation. The rabbis who were there told me he was bent over double the way he normally was, carrying both the fear of judgment with the pain the nation of Israel was going through. He was literally bent over to the ground.
  This is how he walked and stepped up to the holy Ark, and began crying out “Shir hamaalos Mimaakim Karasicha Hashem – from the deepest depth of pain reflecting our situation now, we CRY OUT TO YOU!”
  And he began to enumerate the terrible things that had befallen them. “Where are my brothers? I’m missing my balabatim (congregants)!” And he started to name them! “Where is this one? And this one? Last year he was here. We were ALL here together. And more and more and more – it’s impossible to recount everyone. Where is each one now?”
  And then he added: “Fathers who are here now are asking ‘where are our sons who were here last year?’ Sons are asking, ‘Where are our fathers who dedicated their souls to raising us, and who have now been stolen from us? Where are they?’
  “The husband asks about his wife, and the wife asks about her husband. Where is she? Where is he?
  Small children who were stolen from their mother’s embrace, whose parents know nothing of their whereabouts.” He enumerated the multiple tragic stories that have affected families among us.
  And then there was a tremendous emotional outcry, the likes I had NEVER BEFORE SEEN IN MY LIFE. Throughout the synagogue, men and women were crying, in a loud voice, screams which almost caused people to faint. Children six years old and younger were also crying in a loud voice – almost like a stone wall was crying with us without stopping.
  The rabbi continued, “Avinu Malkeinu – Our Father in Heaven – asei l’maan – do it for the children who study! Hear the simple cries of innocent children, over whom the Satan has no prosecutorial argument. See how they have been exiled in this most difficult way, from their mothers.
  “Avinu Malkeinu – Our Father in Heaven – asei l’maan – do it for those who have been murdered over Your Holy Name! How many of Acheinu Bnei Yisrael (our Jewish brothers and sisters) have been killed by the hands of the cursed ones, even though they had done NOTHING to deserve this fate!
  “Avinu Malkeinu – Our Father in Heaven – have mercy upon us and our children…
Through all of this expounding on the Avinu Malkeinus, the crying never stopped – the great sound of everyone’s voice, the broken hearts from every corner, both from the men section and the women section.
  I do not have the ability to describe this awesome sight which I saw in this synagogue – the only one in the country, where a large number of people gathered, bli ayin hara, and Hashem should add for us 1000 times this number. As the blessing of Moshe says, “The Lord your God should heap upon you a thousand fold…”
  In the whole country, many communities have already been destroyed, to the point that many did not even have a minyan in these Holy Days. And in my community of Pishtian, which had close to 500 Jewish families, since the expulsion from there from the Pesach through Rosh Hashana, there are only 3 families left. No minyan at all. There is only a minyan where I am now because the rabbi here is a tremendous tsaddik, the Chief Rabbi, and in his merit, people came from all over the country to benefit from his shade.
  We are very grateful to the wonderful Baalei Batim, important, wealthy, influential, God-fearing men who were able to impress upon the officials of the city not to bring about the decrees of the country to this place in the manner that has befallen other communities. That is the main reason why this congregation is still here. Although even from here around 4000 souls have been deported. But 1000 people still remain here, and God should save them from the terrible decree. And they should remain here until God will bring a great salvation soon. Many who have become refugees from their cities are here as well, such as myself and my family, and that is why there is a large contingent here.” 

This concludes Rabbi Teichtel’s recounting of that tragic Yom Kippur. The rest of the story is well-known, as Hungarian Jewry was largely wiped out in the summer of 1944, including Rabbi Teichtel.

Let us allow the depth of the seriousness of that Yom Kippur to inspire us to tap into what kind of day Yom Kippur ought to be.

Shana tova to all.

Why Bad Things Happen… An approach to understanding life’s challenges

Rosh Hashana Sermon 

One of the more timeless questions of Theodicy is why bad things happen to good people. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a whole book using that title, and the question is addressed in great books, such as Iyov, the Zohar, and the Talmud (Brachos) places the question in the mouth of Moshe Rabbenu.

One can argue it is the central theme of today’s Torah reading, in that Avraham is given the instruction to take his most precious possession, his son Yitzchak, and go to a mountain where he is to bring Yitzchak as some kind of offering or sacrifice.

In Rabbi Soloveitchik’s analysis of Avraham’s experience, there isn’t a whole lot of depth in the thought process. He says that as soon as God ordered Avraham to sacrifice Yitzchak, the sacrifice was implemented in the depths of his heart. To him, Yitzchak was surrendered right away. He was already dead. Going to the mountain was a fait accompli because Yitzchak was already gone – all that was needed was a substitute sacrifice, which he ended up offering in the form of a ram, but the young man himself no longer existed.

In his inimitable dramatic fashion, Rabbi Soloveitchik paints the image of what Avraham is going to look like on his way back from the Akedah. “We can imagine Abraham’s desolation and loneliness. He knew that on the way back there would be no Isaac. He knew this was the last journey with Isaac. In a matter of days, Isaac would be gone and Avraham would travel alone. There would be no more companionship, no more young child in the house, no more laughter, no more enjoyment, no more joy.

And then God asked for a substitute. And God’s name changed from Elokim, the god of Judgment, to Hashem, the God of Mercy.

Rabbi Soloveitchik notes that Avraham was a yerei Elokim, one who fears Elokim, when his relationship with God was one of strict justice, of total surrender, when God wanted him to give away the best he had. It is easy to be a yerei hashem when God treats you with love, charity, and kindness, when he bestows grace and benevolence upon you like a father treats his son. But to be yerei Elokim when God applies middat hadin, the measure of justice, when you have to surrender everything and to thank Him for hardships, is very difficult.

In 1973, in the wake of the Yom Kippur war, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein delivered an address to senior educators in Israel on the topic of trust in God. After the lecture, he was asked several questions, one which was “How do you explain the concept of yissurin shel ahavah – that God gives chastisements of love?”

The question, was a follow up to a specific point RAL had raised, addressing lessons to be taken from the YK War, and how to relate to the terrible losses. While one never has an answer, and RAL was not the kind of person to utter a sentence such as “This tragedy happened because” or “This suffering happened in order that…” he was not averse to reflecting on the kinds of lessons Chazal might have taken from the difficult time that was the YK War. And in that context he noted that such a concept exists – that Bad Things Happen to Good People – and there is a reason for it. And he was asked to elaborate further.

One view, that of Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, is that Yissurin Shel Ahava is a form of punishment. RAL was of the view, that Yissurin Shel Ahavah is a form of suffering that come to purify a person. Certainly there are people who are broken by suffering. But RAL argued, there are people who can be purified by it. One does not know how one will perform under the duress of suffering, until the difficult time takes place.

To the point – which is relevant here today – RAL noted, “What was accomplished by the Akedah?” And the answer… the Akedah is a creative act that stands by itself. Avraham after the Akedah is not the same Avraham as before the Akedah, because the experience of suffering purified him.

RAL’s message was this. We do not, in our Jewish experience, revel in suffering. But when it occurs, it is essential to turn it into a force for self-rehabilitation and growth. Then it can become chastisements of love – yissurin shel ahavah – which can creatively build the person’s soul and enhance his or her spiritual development.

Arguably, the most important elements of the Akedah narrative is the 3-day journey that Avraham took to get to the mountain. The rabbis focus heavily on the spiritual grapplings he went through. Trying to understand the inherent contradiction in fulfilling God’s commandment while knowing that murder is wrong. It’s that 3-day struggle that brought him to the conclusion that God’s will must be followed. And of course, it was that same conclusion which allowed for God’s command to be countered only by a different command to not touch the lad.

Most fascinating to me is the depiction of Avraham pre-Akedah vs. Avraham post-Akedah as not being the same person.

When I was trying to conjure up such an image, the thought that came to my mind was Charlton Heston emerging from the Burning Bush in “The Ten Commandments.”

Before

After

His face glows, his hair has assumed a grayness and authority that was not present before, and he has clearly BECOME – MOSES, the leader, the deliverer, the one who is ready to face Pharaoh in order to free the Hebrew slaves. One experience, and he is a changed man.

Heston actually wrote an article about how he “met Moses 3 times.” Without getting into the details, he describes his own struggles walking on the mountain near Egypt which the filmmakers were told was Mt. Sinai, and his struggles when playing the scene when Moses is exiled into the desert, at the mercy of the elements. In both cases Heston imagined Moses as a regular human being. Plagued by a lack of clarity, uncertain about his faith in God, unsure of where he is going, and going through the struggle of contending with nature.

And the last time he “met” Moses was when he came out to film the Exodus scene. He was in costume and makeup, and knew there were 7,000 Egyptian “extras” there. 7,000 people, to him, were as far as the eye could see. Lending us to wonder what 600,000 or 3 million people might have looked like to the real Moshe.

These people had trusted Moses, they had followed where he led—and where had he led them? Into this waterless desert? Into this unspeakable wilderness?

  I turned and looked back at the sea of old men, half-starved women, tiny children. Moses could not have led them into this desert!
  Not the Moses I had seen—not the man who had crawled on his knees through this very wasteland. Not the man who had struggled, panting and terrified, up the slopes of Mt. Sinai; that man was capable of doubt. Could he now walk into this desert with the little girl and her geese?
 The moment had come for Moses to lift his staff and signal Exodus. I walked slowly to where they waited, twisted and tangled back through the cool sphinxes. What had Moses felt as these eyes turned to him in trust? The man I had glimpsed on Mt. Sinai had been afraid.
 I had met Moses on Sinai, yes, but Moses had met God. And then I knew what Moses had felt, he had been confident, joyous, unhesitating.
 Of course Moses could not lead these thousands across the desert. He never would have tried. But God could do it. And Moses, this all-too-human man, this man so much like the rest of us, had simply turned himself into the instrument through which the strength of God moved.
 With joy I cried out the words that Moses cried: “Bear us out of Egypt, O Lord, As the eagle bears its young upon its wings...”
  Then I lifted Moses’ staff and saw the multitude heave into a vast shudder of motion, and walk out from bondage. 

When we think about our own struggles, I think Heston’s insight about Moshe is essential. If we truly believe in God, and trust that He is at our side, we have to remind ourselves that while perhaps I don’t have the strength to do what God is putting me up to… that while I don’t think I can survive the suffering experience I am having… that while I will have questions until the day I die about why I needed to have this experience… the difficult time is a struggle I can get through because God is with me.

Avraham goes from being a Yrei Elokim to a Yrei Hashem because he sees God is not just about judgment. God is also merciful. God spared Yitzchak, even after Yitzchak was dead to Avraham.

And as RAL noted, it is that difficult moment that serves as a watershed in a person’s experience.

When I was in yeshiva in Israel post-high school, I remember going to the funeral of Rabbi Kenny Hain’s father, AH. One of the rebbeim in yeshiva, who had grown up in Woodmere, took my brother and I there, and after the funeral he offered to take us to the graves of RAL’s parents. At the back of every section we passed in the cemetery were smaller, in some cases unmarked graves. These were miscarriages, still borns, children who did not survive long after birth.

And there were A LOT of them

Har Hamenuchot has one way streets. And this rebbe remarked to us, “Do you know why the streets are one-way in the cemetery? Because you never go out the same as how you came in.”

I think that line summarizes what Rosh Hashana is meant to be for us. It’s a day when we look to Avraham, perhaps we look to Moshe, we look to all those who suffered in their lives and we realize “I’m not alone.” And if we trust in God, we can tell ourselves that the cleansing that comes from the difficult experience will help define who I am. It might help me become a stronger person, it might give me clarity in life.

I saw a video this year for the organization Kids of Courage. They create amazing experiences for kids and young adults who live in the most trying of circumstances. Whether born with tremendous physical handicap, attached to life saving machinery, or whether they had a debilitating life-event, such as the perfectly normal young man who was electrocuted by a telephone wire, losing both legs and an arm.

In the video, after describing his accident and how he first came to the realization of what had happened to him after waking from the coma, he said he didn’t think he had a reason to live anymore.

But if I could use RAL’s words, the accident cleansed him. It gave him pause to think, to consider, to analyze his life, what he puts into it, and what he hopes to get out of it.

A few weeks ago I quoted a line from Joseph Telushkin’s mother, AH, who said “The happiest people I know in life are people I don’t know very well.”

Every person in this room has something going on that we wish were different. Finances, illness, loss, infertility, divorce, drugs, difficulty with a child. A personal struggle with a medical problem, with a temperament problem, with an aging problem, or some form or another of loneliness.

Where does it take us?

It’s Rosh Hashana. It’s the Yom HaDin. The Day of Judgment. Perhaps one message from the shofar is to blast our problems away, as we take our struggle and do our best to move forward with it.

But even that’s not easy. And perhaps it’s not a good solution. But the sound of the shofar is also reminiscent of God at the Mountain, when He sounded the shofar that accompanied Revelation.

Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote a lot about his relationship with God, and the feeling of having God carry him, the feeling of God’s gentle caress on his worn and frail shoulders. And maybe that’s what the totality of our Rosh Hashana experience is meant to be. It’s a heavy day. We’re in shul many hours. Maybe we’re hungry. Maybe we’re tired. Maybe we’re looking at the clock wondering when this will be over.

But if we take it all in – Confidence in Judgment as I mentioned yesterday; the realization of how any struggle is the gate to the new me; the connection with God that is meant to be symbolized through the Shofar; the model of Avraham and Moshe who went to edges of despair and emerged as the incredible men they became, we begin to see the doorway for our own deliverance opening.

Let today’s Torah reading be the closest we should ever get to experiencing our own Akedah. But like RAL said about Avraham’s experience there. Let the person who exits shul this afternoon be a committed-to-better person than the one who entered this morning.

If Rosh Hashana moves each of us properly, let that be the blessing of our collective experience.

There’s No Crying in… Rosh Hashana

Rosh Hashana 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet 

There is a tale in the book of Nechemiah, a tale of Rosh Hashana. It was in the initial years of the Return from the exile of 70 years following the destruction of the first Temple.

The crowd who returned was very assimilated – many had intermarried, the people were not well versed in Torah, and yet they returned to their ancestral homeland to reestablish the commonwealth that had been destroyed by the Babylonians, who were now gone.

Be that as it may, Nechemiah chapter 8 relates the following tale: “The people gathered to the square that was before the Water Gate, and they said to Ezra the scholar to bring the Torah… and he brought it before the congregation of men and women… on the first day of the seventh month. He read in it… from the [first] light until midday in the presence of the men and the women and those who understood… And Ezra opened the scroll before the eyes of the entire people… And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, "Amen, Amen," with the uplifting of their hands, and they bent their heads and prostrated themselves to the Lord on their faces to the ground… Then Nehemiah and Ezra… said to all the people, "This day is holy to the Lord your God; neither mourn nor weep," for all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the Law. And he said to them, "Go, eat fat foods and drink sweet drinks and send portions to whoever has nothing prepared, for the day is holy to our Lord, and do not be sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." And the Levites quieted all the people, saying, "Hush, for the day is holy, and do not be sad." Then all the people went to eat and to drink and to send portions and to rejoice greatly, for they understood the words that they informed them of.”

Rashi says the people were crying because they realized they had not been fulfilling the Torah properly. Ignorant of Torah they may have been, but sincere people trying to do what was right they also were. When the Tur compares Rosh Hashana to a Judgment Day of anyone in the world, he says people wear black and they may forget to groom, because they don’t know how things will turn out. But we wear white, and wrap ourselves in white, and we shave and cut fingernails, and eat and drink and we are happy and joyous and confident for our outcome.

The Talmud in Sukkah tells us that from the verse “the days of your joy, and your holidays, and your Rosh Chodeshes” we learn that the only Rosh Chodesh not celebrated as Rosh Chodesh, namely Rosh Hashana, is a special day of Simcha/joy! After bringing a number of rabbinic opinions who felt that Rosh Hashana should be a day of fasting, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef notes that the simple understanding of Nechemiah’s response is that there were people who didn’t understand Rosh Hashana and felt they were supposed to fast! Nechemiah was explaining to them not to fast because Rosh Hashana is a day of joy.

Rav Ovadiah writes that not only is it wrong to cry on Rosh Hashana, but on the contrary, a person should go through the prayers with pleasantness and with joy. Kaddish and kedusha are said with the selichos melody because there is an element of rejoicing which should be accompanied by trepidation. But the overwhelming attitude of this day is one of great joy.

Yet Rav Ovadiah recounts a seeming contradiction. Rabbi Chaim Vital noted how the Arizal cried all day on Rosh Hashana, and even moreso – obviously – on Yom Kippur. And the Ar”i felt anyone who didn’t cry had a soul that hadn’t been self-molded properly.

On the other side, the Vilna Gaon felt that one is NOT ALLOWED TO CRY at all, and he would have the chazzan say a Kaddish with a melody more reflective of Yom Tov than of Selichos.

Rav Ovadiah explains that there is no contradiction. A person should not be making himself cry. But if his intensity and his kavvanah brings him to cry, there is allowance for this. This was certainly the case with the Arizal, who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders because of his deep understanding of the Zohar and the secrets of the universe – he could be drawn to crying. Rav Ovadiah compared this to a known passage about Rabbi Akiva, who would cry on Shabbos when he read Shir HaShirim. When his students asked him how he cries when it is forbidden to be sad on Shabbos, he replied that it was therapeutic for him to cry, citing a fulfillment of “oneg Shabbos” – enjoying Shabbos.

Perhaps the same means of getting to cry is ok here – if the crying comes from a place of Kedusha, and from a deep connection and longing for clinging to God – such as the Arizal approach, rather than out of fear.

Rabbi Ovadiah puts it this way – “but to bring oneself to cry through a mournful act of crying is not permissible.”

And he concludes with this important message:

The bottom line is one should not cry on Rosh Hashana. And the prayers of the days should be recited with joy and with holy pleasantness, and with great kavvanah and intensity, for prayer without intent is like a body without a soul. However, one who stirs himself to cry on account of his kavvanah is not violating a prohibition. He should be blessed all the same.

Teshuvah that is accompanied by joy is a fulfillment of what the Tur spoke about – a confidence we have that our repentance and our prayer has been accepted. The two – Teshuvah and joy – go hand in hand.

May we be blessed to enjoy our High Holidays, with the confidence that our joy will carry us to where we need to be when Yom Kippur is over – to a fulfillment of “Serve God with joy!”

The Aftermath of the Storm - Where is God in the Picture?

Parshat Nitzavim Vayelekh

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Psalms 35:9,18: And my soul shall exalt in the Lord; it shall rejoice in His salvation... I will thank You in a large assembly; in a mighty people I will praise You.

In the aftermath of one extremely devastating hurricane in Houston, another threatened Florida, and took over much media attention for the better part of a week. Projections change all the time, and what was slated to be a Category 5 hurricane directly hitting Miami, ended up being a Category 3 hurricane, whose eye was primarily over the Gulf of Mexico, while also hitting the west coast of Florida.

Our hearts go out to those impacted by the storm - especially in the islands, where things look like they will take a very long time to recover.

For those who were touched by it and spared from catastrophe (albeit lost electricity), it is a time to fulfill that which King David spoke of in Psalms 35. There are a number of tales in the Bible of individuals or groups who were spared from certain death, who reacted through singing praises of the Almighty. Such an attitude is certainly warranted today, for those who lived through a hurricane, especially if their damages were zero to nothing and all escaped in safety.

Parshat Vayelekh, the second of our double-parsha, describes the once in every seven years that the entire nation would gather in Jerusalem for “Hakhel.” “Then, Moses commanded them, saying, "At the end of [every] seven years, at an appointed time, in the Festival of Succoth, [after] the year of release, When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord, your God, in the place He will choose, you shall read this Torah before all Israel, in their ears.” (31:10-11)

It is interesting that there is a debate as to when this would take place. Rashi and Rabbenu Bechaye, says it was in the Sukkot immediately AFTER the Shmittah year, in the 8th year (or the 1st of next cycle).

Targum Yonatan and R Yosef Bkhor Shor say it that it is after 7 years from the last Hakhel, in the actual Shmittah year – at a time when people don’t need to tend to their fields and gardens, they can all afford to go to Jerusalem.

The Ramban on Parshas Reeh makes it quite clear that we “pasken” like the approach that says Hakhel would take place on the Sukkos immediately after the Shmittah year ended. Essentially, anyone who had violated the rules of the Torah and worked during Shmittah deserved to have their crops be ruined through untending, and this was a simple way to punish those people, through requiring them to leave their homes and head to Jerusalem.

These two approaches bespeak of two different kinds of attitudes we can have when looking at our Jewish lives. Are we to gather at the end of a year when we have been abiding by the rules of Shmittah, not tilling the soil or planting any crops, relying solely on the benevolence of God?

Or are we gathering to celebrate what have been hopefully successful years of work and produce, giving ourselves a jumpstart for a year that may prove to be difficult because we’ll be observing Shmittah, but which works because we are so connected with God and the Land, as inspired by the great gathering that kicks off our Shmittah year experience?

The approach of having it after the Shmittah year is like celebrating a long marriage which has had its ups and downs, but has weathered its way through storms.

The approach of having it at the beginning of the Shmittah year is like celebrating a bar or bat mitzvah or a wedding. We know we should be excited because we’ve accomplished all that we need to to prepare us for this day. And yet, we don’t know what the future brings, because what will be in the coming year is uncertain. Will the bar or bat mitzvah choose to live a life of mitzvos? Will the newlyweds learn to live with one another, work through their kinks, and come out stronger as they grow together?

Both are legitimate, which is why both views exist.

But it’s a significant question for us to ask ourselves, how we view our relationship with God. How much of our gratitude over the aftermath of a storm comes from the perspective of what could have been? How cynical are we about meteorologists and the hype they create? Will we pay attention next time? How do we view God’s role in the world? Do we see all that happens as being His master plan? Do we think our behavior impacts what God does? Do we think the cause-and-effect equation of human input determining divine reaction is one which has global ramifications?

All this impacts how we respond toward God when all is over. With Rosh Hashana almost upon us, we ought to be asking ourselves what we believe. And if God is central to our approach to life, we ought to thank Him at every turn.

Defining Dignity: Living in the Image of God

Parshat Ki Tavo

by Rabbi Avi Billet

One of the more disturbing images from our parsha’s great rebuke is, “Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and beasts of the land, and no one will be concerned.” (28:26)

If we end up as food for birds, there hasn’t been burial. So why add “no one will be concerned”? Clearly!

Netziv gives two possible explanations. First, that no person will even show up to chase away the birds. Alternatively, a person will come, but will have no success in chasing them away, “A sure sign that the person’s tzelem Elokim (God-like persona) is gone.”

The human being sans tzelem Elokim has not the spark that separates him from the animals, that typically causes the bird to fear him. How does a human being fall so low to lose one’s tzelem Elokim? Let’s explore the explanations of two Hassidic masters.

The first - Rav Tzadok of Lublin - taught that God created the human in His image: Just as the human was supposed to have fear of God, every creature was supposed to have fear of the human. When the human lost his fear of God, what he really lost was his tzelem elokim. After receiving the punishment of being a wanderer after having killed his brother, Kayin felt that any human who lost his tzelem elokim could take the next step to commit murder.

Let the irony not be lost on us as Kayin is concerned that others will disregard their tzelem elokim and possibly kill him, though he had abandoned his own tzelem elokim when he murdered Hevel.

R. Zvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov, in his Igra D’Kalla (Breishis) also references the Kayin story, that when Kayin’s offering was not accepted, he was VERY angry. The rabbis teach that when the word “tov” (good) is present, it references the good inclination. The word “me’od” (very) indicates the presence of the evil inclination. Kayin’s evil inclination flared up because he had gotten angry, and anger causes a person to lose one’s tzelem Elokim. Nedarim 22:1 equates getting angry with killing one’s own soul. Only a person who has no soul can commit murder, and how much time passed from when Kayin got angry until he murdered his brother? (Not a lot...)

In the Laws of Teshuvah 3:6, Maimonides compiles a list of the kinds of people who have no share in the world to come. Most of the sins attributed to these people are kind of heinous, but among them he says “Those who speak lashon hora (gossip/slander).” Some possibilities for where Maimonides gets this notion include Arakhin 15 – “Anyone who speaks lashon hora denies God.” The spies (Bamidbar 14) were infamous for speaking lashon hora and denying God, and they are presumed to not have a share in the world to come.

Along similar lines, R Elazar Hamodai notes in Avot that one “embarrasses his friend in public” has no share in the world to come. The Talmud in Bava Metzia 58 has a related teaching, “Causing the face of your friend to whiten is akin to having committed murder.”

Just to drive the message home, the Talmud Yerushalmi tells us at the beginning of Peah that there are four sins for which a person suffers in this world, and deals with it further in whatever ends up being his/her world to come experience. The first three are murder, idolatry and immorality, and the fourth is Lashon Hora, which is “as bad as all of them.”

We begin to understand what the Tokhacha is saying. If you lose your tzelem elokim because you don’t fear God, if you lose your tzelem elokim because you are easily angered, then it’s a short hop and skip to committing murder. And the murder which many of us commit regularly is not the kind that is put on trial, but it is lashon Hora, whether the slanderous kind, the bring others down kind, or the whiten the face kind.

The Shem Mishmuel argues that the main ingredient to victory over the Yetzer Hora, is tapping into one’s tzelem Elokim. And so we’ve come full circle.

Diminishing, disregarding, or having a lack of tzelem elokim – brought about through not fearing God, through anger, and through Lashon Hora – all bring about the triumph of the Yetzer Hora. The Yetzer Hora is what causes us to do all these things. But if we can herald and raise our tzelem elokim, we will be victorious in battle against our Evil Inclinations.

So let us be kind. Let us be nonjudgmental. Let us offer critique when it will be accepted, but in a loving way. Let us be accepting of a rebuke that comes from a place of love. Let us remember that every person has a tzelem elokim. And that everyone’s tzelem elokim is elevated when that is the fabric of humanity that we note as our commonality.