Notes offered by El-Ad Eliovson:

Shiur l’refuah shleimah Yehudah Manik ben Beilah, Chana Chaya bat Perel, Yocheved Raizel Sarah bat Rivka Malya

• 1st instance of mechilah by brothers and Yosef

• See Genesis Chapter 45

• 42: 21

• The brothers are not “simple” – they are the Shivtei Kah, the twelve tribes of G-d

• This whole episode is a question of how open-minded your Torah learning is,

• Yosef’s coat was many colors: personal expression, very outgoing

• There were differences in opinion on Halacha: for Yidden after shechitah, the animal is “dead”, movement is insignificant. Were the brothers from the shifchot full-yidden yet before Har Sinai? According to Yosef, no, so movement counts for goyim who don’t have a Halacha of shechitah and they were transgressing the Halacha of taking a limb/eating from a still living creature; so he reports their erroneous behavior

• The brothers want a death sentence for Yosef. That’s pretty serious. They held he was chayav mitah: liable for the death penalty.

• Now later let’s say everything works out and they all find they were acting according to good intentions: do they have to ask mechilah?

• The brothers are now realizing the dreams are coming true; granted it is uncomfortable for them and to confront the fact that Yosef’s dreams are practically Nevuah/prophecy.

• OK – he’s viceroy and wealthy

• Do they have to ask mechilah?

• They were following Halacha…

The purpose of a Rav is to teach others to walk in the light of Halacha.

• Picture the scene. Picture it! “Take every man out?” who goes out? The bodyguards? The brothers?

• “Yosef couldn’t hold back?” Just the opposite; he couldn’t let go while everyone was around!

• Yosef didn’t want to let others see the brothers embarrassed? NO! READ RASHI! It was that Yosef didn’t want to let others see Yosef embarrassing others!

• The capacity you have to listen to the shofar with Kavanah, focus, hearing, allowing what is supposed to happen to occur determines what will happen, i.e., how you will hear Torah the following year

• Part of your Din on Rosh Hashanah is whether you will be able to improve in making Berachot in the coming year – why – because Berachot are formulated with the words: Melech ha-Olam (except for the first bracha of Shmone Esrei where it is Elokainu Elokei Avoteinu)

• The way you can hear other people say Berachot is the way you listened to Shofar

• The way other people hear you is the way you listened to Shofar

• All this is part of your Din on Rosh Hashanah. How you listen to Shofar

• Bracha means to expand.

• 42:21: we saw his suffering, but we didn’t hear. Hear? It should say, we didn’t respond to what we *saw*? Why does it say we didn’t hear his supplications?

• Verse 22: now Reuven says – Isn’t this what I said … and you didn’t *listen*?!

• Verse 23: and they didn’t know that Yosef was *listening*

• Now go back to chapter 45 after the revelation to the brothers: verse 16: And the voice was *heard* throughout the house of Pharaoh.

Yosef cried and everyone ran out except the brothers who were haunted by their ignoring their brother’s cries. This time they stayed and listened to someone’s cries. Joseph afforded them an opportunity to fix their mistake, and they took full advantage of the opportunity!

The first achrayut – responsibility is not on the person asking mechilah. The first achrayut – responsibility is on the one to be asked not to walk around achzari, stubborn, bitter, with a chip on your shoulder. The first step is to be forgiving and to create the opportunities, to be easily accessible to others to ask one for mechilah. (See Ra’avan and Kaf Hachaim Orach Chaim 606:13)

This is exactly what God does: He makes himself accessible to us in a manner that we will have the opportunity and desire to repair the damage to the relationship. Once the damage is repaired no request of forgiveness is really necessary.

We all want Hashem Yisborach to forgive us. If we act accordingly towards others, Hashem will forgive us.

Rabbi Moshe Stepansky added:

very interesting = a further step is the last perek in B’reishit after Ya’akov’s burial. The brothers’ subterfuge w Yosef (50;16-17).

Yosef seemed to not carry a chip on his shoulder -upon revelation to the brothers when he sends them back to bring Ya’akov (45;4-8), he’s reassuring them their actions were but G-d’s plan and it was all good.

So, how to understand perek 50? Were the brothers projecting onto Yosef the chip they would have carried? Is it possible that lo, after all these years they had a chip on their shoulder, still smarting from the ordeal Yosef put them thru when they arrived in Mitzrayim , and they’re hinting they’d like an apology from Yosef (can’t demand from the Viceroy of Mitzrayim, but they are still his older brothers)?

How much convincing does Yosef have to do vis-a-vis trying to placate the brothers? The bottom line is despite Yosef’s seeing his great-grandchildren being born (arichut yamim), he still left the world first amongst his brothers.

So, the wonder of the Holy Torah continues – the more you provide possible answers, the more other questions pop up.

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Calliope abandoned me on this morning’s walk, and I am grateful. Her music plays too many of her beautiful ideas in my head to recall when I am back in front of my computer. I am grateful for her peaceful absences as I am for her symphonic appearances. I am most grateful for her inconsistencies. I never know when she will appear, nor, how loudly she will play. She may disappear for a few days only to reappear with a concerto or sonata. Her inconsistencies are her masterpiece, as they remind me of my numerous inconsistencies.

In his “Memoirs”, Andrei Sakharov cites the great Polish philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski, who wrote: “Inconsistency is simply a secret awareness of the contradictions of this world, a permanent feeling of possible personal error, or if not that, than the possibility that one’s antagonist is right.” Sakharov quarrels with the word ‘inconsistency’, which he would replace with one that “conveys my belief that intellectual growth and social awareness should combine dynamic self-criticisms and a set of stable values.”

Kolakowski’s ‘inconsistencies” and Sakharov’s idea of self-criticism powerfully resonate throughout Elul, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. We examine ourselves and usually find inconsistencies. We attempt to repair damaged relationships and are forced to consider the possibility that our antagonist is right. Elul and the Days of Awe are full of dynamic self-criticisms based on a set of stable values.

We believe that it is wrong to speak Lishon Harah – the vocabulary of evil – to speak negatively of others, and yet, we often do. We believe that we should judge others favorably, yet we slip and often react viscerally without giving the benefit of doubt.

We are not hypocrites; we do not preach what we don’t believe. We believe what we say but we slip and behave inconsistently with those beliefs. Elul is our opportunity to catch those inconsistencies and search for more integrity. We recognize that we live in a world of contradictions, are haunted by possible personal errors and we criticize ourselves without mercy. But Elul, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur add mercy and compassion to our criticisms. We are able to approach God in our imperfect, inconsistent state and attach to Him despite our failings.

All we need is to add that same element of mercy to our dealings with others and consider that we may be the one who erred, and that our antagonist may very well have been right.

So, thanks Calliope, your inconsistent appearances have allowed me to face my own with compassion.

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The primary verse associated with Elul is “Ani L’dodi, v’dodi li”, – “I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.” (Song of Songs 6:4)

Targum Yonatan understands this verse as a description of God reaching out to us, and making Himself accessible to us, no matter where we are. God gives us the ability to bring His Presence into our lives and world.

Elul is a month of heightened awareness as we prepare for Rosh Hashana. The awareness must be one that enhances our connection and allows us to experience God reaching out to us, and the ability to make His Presence a very real part of our lives.

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“Rabbi, I am so depressed that I am going to commit suicide! What are you doing?”

“I’m calling 911.”

“Why?”

“You said that you were suicidal.”

“But you’re supposed to talk me out of it! You aren’t supposed to call 911.”

“I can’t take the risk with your life.”

“I don’t really mean it. None of the other rabbis I spoke with called 911. I am just threatening.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Well, you’re not responding the way I expected.”

The ambulance came to take him to the hospital and he had no choice but to go.

I visited him in the hospital a week later and he was a different person. He understood that he had a script in his head, in which he would threaten suicide, and the other person would be so scared that they would give into whatever he wanted. He imagined a series of mapped out dance steps and had managed to manipulate people into dancing according to prearranged dance steps. I refused to dance to his scripted steps. Thank God. His suicide threats were a script, based on reality, but there was a part of him that was suicidal.

I watch such scripted dances all the time. I see teenagers fight with their parents according to the same script, time after time, until the script says that one party or the other should give in, and everything is settled until the next dance.

I see husbands and wives repeatedly argue to the same planned steps. They push each other away, until one or the other, depending on the dance, blows up or cries and then the preprogrammed steps instruct the other to apologize and give in.

I watch people dancing all the time and I always try to erase just one of the dance steps marked on the script in order to get them to stop dancing and live with clarity.

The Days of Awe make me think about such dances. We become more introspective as we approach Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment. We consider our mistakes. We make a serious effort to repair relationships. On Yom Kippur we make promises to improve and grow. We then go on with our lives. It is almost as if we have the steps marked out on the dance floor and simply follow the instructions.

It is not coincidental that the Days of Awe conclude with the totally unscripted dancing of Simchat Torah: Our goal is to learn new dances. We want to use Torah to constantly learn new dance steps and experience lives filled with fresh movement and growth.

The only way to properly prepare is to make sure that we don’t dance on pre-arranged steps through Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. This is the time we must catch the dances we practice without any thought because they have become so habitual.

We can use the next argument as an opportunity to stop and erase just one step from the script and see where it takes us. We can use each Shmone Esrei between now and Rosh Hashana to learn some new dance steps, so that we are ready for the eternal dance of Simchat Torah.

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Here are some ideas sent from one anonymous friend to another:

1. What is happening (troubles/challenges) in your life are temporary and you will come out of them much stronger

2. Even Avraham Avinu had ten nisyonot (challenges)

3. The phrase in the prayer Aleinu, “l’takayn olam b’Malchut Sha-dai, to fix the world with/in the dominion of G-d as known by the name Sha-dai” is all challenges

4. (Because) we are pulling in other directions HaShem Yisborach is giving us nisyonot

5. Be strong in getting the messages (from HaShem)

6. Stay where you are and focus

7. When you are in pain/suffering, you don’t want (to get the messages)

8. There is a bigger story – to find yourself, your voice, your reason (for being)

9. And once you find it, it is pure joy: you are connected

10. You are still writing the story

11. Pick the write words to talk to your brain – constructive – not destructive

12. You can still change the world

13. G-d is using you to spread the message. Don’t you see what’s happening ???

14. Hashem chooses whom he wants to achieve his work. He chose Moshe Rabbeinu to communicate to Pharaoh what? Freedom!!!!

15. We all know that Moshe had a speech impediment and we all know what were his accomplisments, struggles and challenges.

16. It is in fixing that we become billboards to the world and through it we get Yetsiate Mitsrayim. However – when we have overcome our challenges – the challenges become worlds of creation and through it become a body of Hashem’s works and we achieve eternal life. Even Hashem called it when he was creating the world, “ki tov”

17. What that means is that Hashem teaches us in order to get to “ki tov.”

18. You get to start by tohoo vavohoo. We see clearly Hashem’s frustration in creating the world

19. The same way you have given my words life you and brought my words to the light, I pray that Hashem gives you light and brings your work to the world and may your work become a menu through which people achieve.

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“I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.” (Song of Songs 6:4)

I took the wrong iPod with me this morning on my hike. I turned it on expecting to hear my father zt”l delivering an advanced Talmud lecture, instead, the Beach Boys blasted my ears with a love song. (I assure you that it was not a good trade!) For completely religious reasons – we are about to enter the Hebrew month of Elul, the month of love, as expressed in the verse above – I decided to listen to the Beach Boys, Elvis, Alabama, Gypsy Kings, Santana etc. sing about love.

I admit that the music added energy and bounce to my walk. I did the three miles in 30 minutes. I was surprised to realize that most of the songs were about love, and I laughed. All the artists sang about love with conviction, passion, and feeling, but, I gotta tell ya’, none of them are people who have succeeded at love. I checked some of them out on the web and most have been married two or three times and have bounced from one “love” to another faster than I can walk my three miles.

They do make a lot of money. People want to hear what these brilliant artists have to say about love. There are always relationship books on the bestseller lists. Classes, lectures and programs about love are usually packed. People want to know about love.

I wonder: What do we know about love? Always an important question; essential to our Elul.

You are not going to read Simcha Weinberg’s expert opinions and advice about love. Whatever I believe is empirical and deeply private. I do know one thing: The Torah often uses “Know” to mean love, as in “Adam knew his wife.”

Perhaps love begins with a desire to know someone, as Maimonides describes the process of achieving love of God: One learns about God, and the more one knows God, the more one loves Him.

Elul is not about love songs. It is about a wish to know God. We will face Him, so to speak, on Rosh Hashana, and we can spend this month getting to know Him. The love will come.

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“The honor of the Lord is a hidden thing, but the honor of kings may be searched out. The highest heavens, the deepest earth, and the heart of kings cannot be fathomed.” Proverbs 25:2-3

We can examine and even comprehend the glory of kings, but not their hearts.

We cannot comprehend the glory of the Lord. The Vilna Gaon explains, based on the Talmud (Chagigah) and Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 9:1) that the ” glory of the Lord” refers to the creation story, which may only be studied with one student at a time. The “glory of kings” refers to the stories beginning with Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of man”, who are described in this verse as kings because of their potential greatness.

It is striking to recall a verse that describes human beings as royalty during this month of Elul, in which we prepare for the Coronation.

Jewish law takes this so seriously that we are granted the status of royalty on Shabbat: we are permitted to have elephants as pets.

Our status will change on Rosh Hashana. We are the children of the King. Although we cannot comprehend the “glory of the Lord”, we can and must examine the “glory of the kings”, our glory as royalty: how are we using it? Do we merit the status?

Yet, “the heart of kings” is beyond our ken. Our hearts are compared to the highest heavens and the deepest earth. We cannot fully understand how our hearts function, because, as the Gra continues, our hearts, when we act as kings, are boundless.

It is worthwhile to recall that if we truly believe that we are as royalty, we must act as royalty and treat others with the respect due to royalty.

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This picture was taken on September 16, 1941 at Vinnitza, Ukraine and was found in the personal file of a German Einsatzgruppen soldier. On the back of the picture he had noted, “This is the last Jew of Vinnitza”.

28,000 Jews from the city and surrounding area were shot on that day by the Einsatzkommando (a sub-group of the five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads responsible for systematically killing Jews and Soviet political activists).

I look at the man sitting at the edge of the pit just before his execution, and I feel connected to him. He was murdered almost 70 years ago, but the connection is still powerful.

I feel connected to IDF soldiers who have been killed and wounded.

I feel connected to Gilad Shalit who sits alone somewhere in Gaza, ignored by the world.

I feel connected to the Jews of Europe during the Dark Ages. I feel connected to the Jews who lived through the destruction of the Second Temple.

I feel connected to the Jews of the Bible.

I do not always feel as connected with the Jews with whom I pray.

For some reason, I find it easier to connect with people long dead, or who live at a distance, than with people who live on the same block. They cannot argue with me. They are not unreliable. They can’t hurt me. It seems to be easier to connect with vulnerabilities than with people as they are.

We actually speak of our connection of the vulnerable on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur:

“On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.” – Unetane Tokef

We share vulnerabilities: We do not say, “Will I die? Will I die by water?” We ask, “Who will live and who will die? Who by water and who by fire?” We acknowledge that all of us are vulnerable. We all share the same fears. We connect for those few moments through shared vulnerabilities.

When we stand a recite the Unetane Tokef, we stand united, connected without hesitation or resentment. We connect to each other as we connect with the victims of the past and the vulnerable of the present.

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“The honor of the Lord is a hidden thing but the honor of kings may be searched out. The highest heavens, the deepest earth, and the heart of kings cannot be fathomed.” Proverbs 25:2-3

We can examine and even comprehend the glory of kings, but not their hearts.

We cannot comprehend the glory of the Lord. The Vilna Gaon explains, based on the Talmud (Chagigah) and Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 9:1) that the ” glory of the Lord” refers to the creation story, which may only be studied with one student at a time. The “glory of kings” refers to the stories beginning with Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of man”, who are described in this verse as kings because of their potential greatness.

It is striking to recall a verse that describes human beings as royalty during this month of Elul, in which we prepare for the Coronation.

Jewish law takes this so seriously that we are granted the status of royalty on Shabbat: we are permitted to have elephants as pets.

Our status will change on Rosh Hashana. We are the children of the King. Although we cannot comprehend the “glory of the Lord”, we can and must examine the “glory of the kings”, our glory as royalty: how are we using it? Do we merit the status?

Yet, “the heart of kings” is beyond our ken. Our hearts are compared to the highest heavens and the deepest earth. We cannot fully understand how our hearts function, because, as the Gra continues, our hearts, when we act as kings, are boundless.

It is worthwhile to recall that if we truly believe that we are as royalty, we must act as royalty and treat others with the respect due to royalty.

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Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

He had faced all sorts of battles in his life, but never one such as this: Some people spread terrible lies about him, seriously damaging his reputation and carreer. Many friends and supporters came to assure him that they refused to believe the false stories and “obvious lies,” but he felt as if they did not look at him as they had in the past. This was not the most difficult battle.

A few months later, just before Yom Kippur, three of the people who had spread the lies came separately to ask for forgiveness. “For what?” he asked.

“Just in case I did anything to hurt you over the past year,” was the response of two.

“Did you do anything to hurt me?” our friend asked.

“Not that I can think of. Do you forgive me or not?”

“I am willing to forgive anything but Motzi Shem Ra (Libel).”

“Well, I have nothing to worry about.” This was not his most difficult battle.

The third person approached him in front of a crowd of people and said, “I should not have waited until Yom Kippur, but I ask your forgiveness for spreading lies about you, hurting you and damaging your reputation. I cannot undo all the damage but I will speak to everyone I know and tell them that I lied about you.”

“I forgive you,” he answered, and felt as if the third person had given a gift to him.

Almost twenty years later, he applied for a fabulous job. Everything was set, except the contract signing, when the head of HR called to say that the company had withdrawn the job offer: He had mentioned to a friend of his that he was hiring our friend, and the person recalled what he had heard from the third man who had asked for forgiveness many years earlier, and urged the HR person not to risk that the stories were true. Our friend pleaded with the HR head to call the original source of the story, but he refused; “I can’t afford the risk.”

He considers this the most challenging battle of his life: Twenty years later he still carried the wounds. He could not escape the lies. He couldn’t find a job. “I find myself wishing that I had not forgiven him! I think that the only way for him to earn forgiveness would be for him to tag along with me for the rest of my life and witness the devastation he caused.”

“If a man marries a wife, and comes to her and hates her, and he makes a wanton accusation against her, spreading a bad name against her, and he said, ‘I married this woman, and I came near to her and I did not find signs of virginity on her.’ Then the father of the girl and her mother should take proofs of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city, to the gate. The father of the girl should say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and he hated her. Now, behold! He made a wanton accusation against her, saying, ‘I did not find signs of virginity on your daughter’ – but these are the signs of virginity of my daughter!’ And they should spread out the sheet before the elders of the city. The elders of the city shall take that man and punish him. And they shall fine him one hundred silver shekels and give them to the father of the girl, for he had issued a slander against a virgin of Israel, and she shall remain with him as a wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.” (Deuteronomy 22:13-19 – Mitzvah 540 & 572) The slanderer must remain married to his wife. (Concept #134) He may never divorce her. (Concept #135) -Rambam, Hilchot Na’arah Betulah – The Laws of Young Maidens

These are quite complex laws, however, the two actual Mitzvot address our friend’s battle and comments: The only way to realize the extent of the damage we cause to another’s reputation is to forever remain with that person, just as the husband must forever live with his wife! He may never divorce her. He must face his libel everyday for the rest of his life. He must remain married to her to prove to the world that he lied. Imagine the punishment of being married to a woman you have slandered and never be allowed to divorce her.

The Torah wants us to understand that there is no other way to fully appreciate the pain and damage we cause to another when we slander or libel them.

As we examine the past year through the lens of Elul Teshuva, we must carefully reflect on anything and everything we have said about others: Was it true? Did it hurt them? How much damage did I cause? How can I repair the damage?

This is why Motzi Shem Ra is the only sin we are not expected to forgive! May God protect us!

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