Parshas Devarim, Shabbos Chazon - The proper way to speak words of rebuke

00:00 Parshas Devarim always falls in the week of Tisha B’Av. What is interesting is that Parshas Devarim is a parsha of rebuke. Moshe Rabbeinu rebukes the people, and Rashi says that the rebuke was expressed through allusions, out of respect for the Jewish people. At first glance, this is surprising: during the Three Weeks and the Nine Days, when we mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, we should be strengthening the Jewish people and speaking their praises, highlighting the virtues of Jews. The Gemara says that baseless hatred caused the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. So to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash, there must be unconditional love, and for there to be unconditional love, we must speak about the virtues of the Jewish people. Yet it is precisely in this parsha that we find rebuke and words of moral instruction. But the Midrash, Midrash Rabbah on Parshas Devarim, says: “Let Moshe, who loves them, rebuke them.” This is a wonderful Midrash: when Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to rebuke the Jewish people, He sent Moshe Rabbeinu specifically. And indeed, when Moshe Rabbeinu begins to address them with rebuke, first of all, everything he says is expressed through allusions. He delivers the rebuke itself by allusion. And as soon as he finishes giving all these allusions, he begins to say: “Hashem your G-d has multiplied you, and behold, today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. May Hashem, the G-d of your fathers, increase you a thousandfold and bless you as He has spoken to you.” He has come to rebuke them.

01:57 He is about to rebuke the Jewish people, and instead he begins blessing them and highlighting their virtues. “Let Moshe, who loves them, rebuke them.” Moshe specifically is the person who can truly rebuke the Jewish people, because the truth is Ahavas Yisroel. In other words, Moshe Rabbeinu’s rebuke shows us what genuine Ahavas Yisroel is. Moshe Rabbeinu was the faithful shepherd of the Jewish people throughout his life. There is a story connected to our parsha as well, a story about the holy Baal Shem Tov. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates in his letters that once, in the time of the Baal Shem Tov—as is known, in the Baal Shem Tov’s early years, many great Torah scholars opposed him. This was after the episode of Shabbetai Tzvi, and people were suspicious: who knew what this was? At that time there was the Council of Four Lands. As is known, the Council of Four Lands was in Poland, a council of prominent rabbis who dealt with all the affairs of the communities there. A delegation from the Council of Four Lands came to the holy Baal Shem Tov and said, on behalf of the rabbis, that he must stop what he was doing immediately, at once, and that if he did not, G-d forbid, there would be serious consequences. Their words were very harsh. The Baal Shem Tov stayed with the members of the delegation, explained his views to them, and spoke with them for several days, and they began

03:37 to understand the teachings of Chassidus. The Baal Shem Tov explained what service of Hashem with the mind is, what service with the heart is, the difference between simply studying Torah and studying Torah with the heart, out of love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. During his conversations with them over those days, the Baal Shem Tov expressed great astonishment: how could they have ruled on his case before they even knew what his approach was? He cited a verse from our parsha, Parshas Devarim: “Hear between your brothers, and judge justly.” The Gemara in Sanhedrin says about this that one may not judge until one has heard both litigants. So how could they have ruled against him and what he was doing without hearing his side, when they did not even know what his approach was? The Baal Shem Tov also gave a Chassidic interpretation of the words “Hear between your brothers, and judge justly.” I will tell it as the Frierdiker Rebbe relates it in detail: the Baal Shem Tov gave three interpretations of this verse. First he said: “Hear between your brothers.” “Hear”—one who has a spiritual sense of hearing and hears how great Hashem’s love is for every Jew, how precious every Jew is Above, is “between your brothers.” The Baal Shem Tov interprets “between” as related to understanding.

05:22 “Between” as related to love. Such a person understands the greatness of a Jew. That is the first interpretation. The second interpretation of “Hear between your brothers”: “Hear”—one who has a spiritual sense of hearing is “between your brothers.” He is connected to Jews and senses the spiritual dimension in each and every Jew, and in what comes from them. And the Baal Shem Tov gave a third interpretation of “Hear between your brothers”: “Hear”—for a person to acquire a spiritual sense of hearing, to be able to hear and feel the greatness of a Jew, he must be “between your brothers.” This is possible only for someone who is connected to Jews and regards all Jews, even the simplest, as brothers. This was the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching, through which he won the hearts of the delegation members and brought them to leave him alone and not interfere with his work. The delight in Ahavas Yisroel, the delight in a Jew: to hear the wondrous greatness, to hear the richness within a Jew. When it comes to rebuke, when Moshe Rabbeinu wants to rebuke the Jewish people—“Let Moshe rebuke them”—we see in Moshe’s rebuke itself how he heard the preciousness of a Jew. There is a teaching from the holy Rebbe of Berditchev, and here we can speak about the virtues of the Jewish people. The holy Rebbe of Berditchev’s entire approach was to speak of the virtues of the Jewish people, to praise them, to be their advocate. And there is a teaching from the Rebbe of Berditchev about a Midrash on Parshas Bereishis. The Midrash says that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu created light and darkness, light and gloom, it goes on to say,

07:22 “And G-d saw the light, that it was good.” The Midrash says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created light, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu created darkness. “Darkness—these are the deeds of the wicked. Light—these are the deeds of the righteous. I do not know which of them He desires.” The Midrash says: we do not know what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants, “which of them He desires.” Since it says, “And G-d saw the light, that it was good,” He desires the deeds of the righteous. On these words of the Midrash, the Rebbe of Berditchev asks: What does this mean? How could we even entertain such a thought? How could anyone think that Hakadosh Boruch Hu would desire the deeds of the wicked? Rather, the explanation is this: there are two approaches to serving Hashem. In one approach, we emphasize the virtues of Jews and the virtue of goodness. We see the good and bring out what is worthy of praise and acclaim, and in this way draw Jews closer to Yiddishkeit. In the second approach, we emphasize what is negative and bad, and how “your forsaking Hashem is evil and bitter,” and in this way move Jews to do teshuvah. In other words, when leaders, mashpi’im, and Jews who influence other Jews want to inspire them to follow the path of teshuvah and draw closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, they can do so in two ways. They can do it by focusing on “the deeds of the wicked,” or they can do it by focusing on “the deeds of the righteous.” The meaning of the Midrash is not, G-d forbid, that there is

09:17 any doubt whether Hakadosh Boruch Hu desires the deeds of the righteous or the deeds of the wicked. Rather, the Midrash means that when we want to influence a Jew to turn away from evil and do good, and distance him from undesirable conduct; when we want to bring him under the wings of the Shechinah and draw him closer to G-dliness, Torah, and mitzvos—there are two kinds of people. Some take an approach of pushing away, speaking about how bad and bitter undesirable conduct and transgressions are. That is how they draw him out of that state, by focusing on “the deeds of the wicked”: they emphasize how lowly those deeds are. The second approach emphasizes the great virtue of the deeds of the righteous. About this, he says: since both approaches can move Jews to do teshuvah, “I do not know which of them He desires.” Each approach has its merits. When it says, “And G-d saw the light”—He desires the deeds of the righteous. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu desires that rebuke be given by highlighting people’s virtues, thereby drawing a Jew closer and bringing him to follow the path of teshuvah. This was the way of the holy Rebbe of Berditchev, who always spoke of the virtues of the Jewish people. In this way he inspired thousands upon thousands of Jews to do teshuvah and drew the hearts of the Jewish people closer to their Father in Heaven. And there is a connection: on Parshas Devarim, on Shabbos Chazon, we also read the haftarah of Chazon Yeshayahu. The haftarah of Chazon

10:45 Isaiah’s is a very sharp haftarah. It is a haftarah in which he speaks with great severity. First of all, there is something surprising about the fact that this particular haftarah is read with this parsha. After all, the prophet Isaiah was the prophet of salvation, and his verses generally—there is, of course, the well-known difference between Jeremiah and Isaiah. Jeremiah spoke at a time of concealment and emphasized the bitterness of exile and destruction. That was his language. And so the Midrash says that this was his name, Yirmiyahu, from the word for bitterness. And [unclear] in the words of our Sages, which express the way Jeremiah spoke about the destruction. By contrast, we find that the prophet Isaiah was the prophet of salvation, who always spoke with kindness. Yet when we look at the first chapter of Isaiah—and it is precisely this haftarah that we read on Shabbos Parshas Devarim, Shabbos Chazon, the first chapter of Isaiah—when we examine the plain meaning of the text, what he says in this chapter is very sharp. There is a beautiful Torah teaching on this from the holy Rebbe of Berditchev, in which he turns the interpretation around. The Rebbe once spoke about this very point: how the holy Rebbe of Berditchev interprets the haftarah in exactly the opposite way from its apparent plain meaning, because he finds in it a defense of the Jewish people. This is what the haftarah says: “Woe, sinful nation, a people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers,

12:16 corrupting children. They have forsaken Hashem; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel; they have turned away backward.” Those are the verses in the haftarah. The holy Rebbe of Berditchev says: If you learn the verses according to their plain meaning, it is astonishing! How could the prophet Isaiah speak about Jews this way? To say such things about Jews [unclear], rachmana litzlan—that Jews are “corrupting children, offspring of evildoers”? How can one say such things about Jews? That is the Rebbe of Berditchev’s question. The holy Rebbe of Berditchev says: No, that is not how to understand it at all, not at all. When he looks at what is happening in exile and sees Jews in a bitter, harsh and painful exile, and sees their situation—that there is weakness in their observance of the mitzvos, and that they are struggling with the yetzer hara—he knows that this does not come from who Jews really are. Jews want to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Every Jew loves Hashem; every Jew wants to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu; every Jew “wants to do the will of his Creator.” So what is the issue? They are surrounded by non-Jews, surrounded by non-Jewish ways, and suffer bitterness and distress because of the hardships of exile. So, consequently, what is there [unclear]? And from this [unclear] that a person must pour out his heart over the troubles of the Jewish people, over the fact that Jews are in exile. He must come and speak in their defense. And this is what the prophet Isaiah says in

13:53 Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev interprets these verses as follows: “Woe, sinful nation”—he is speaking about the non-Jew, not about the Jews. The prophet Isaiah says, “Woe, sinful nation.” There is a non-Jew, and that non-Jew is sinful. That is his nature: he is inherently inclined to sin, and he wants to sin. “A people weighed down with iniquity”—for the Jewish people, sinning is hard. A Jew does not want to sin; it is difficult for him. If so, why do we see Jews sinning? The reason is “offspring of evildoers, corrupting children”—the nations of the world, the “offspring of evildoers,” are the ones “corrupting children”: they corrupt our children, the children of Israel, and entice them to follow their lowly, evil ways. And that leads, rachmana litzlan, to a situation among Jews of [unclear]. But where does all this come from? “They have turned away backward.” “Backward” refers to the nations of the world, whose life force comes from the aspect of the backside; the nations of the world derive from that aspect. “They have turned away backward”—all the [unclear]. Everything the non-Jews accumulate for themselves [unclear], as they become wealthy and powerful, they take from the Jews: they steal damim from Jews and spill damim—damim in both senses, blood and money. And that is where “they have turned away backward” comes from. And this is the prophet Isaiah’s claim regarding the Jews: the Jewish people are “a people weighed down with iniquity”; sinning is hard for them, and they do not want to sin at all.

15:41 On the contrary, a Jew wants to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the non-Jews around him are “offspring of evildoers,” and they “corrupt children”; they harm the Jew. And when we change our perspective and call upon Jews to pray and ask, the deliverance and virtues of the Jewish people are revealed and brought to light. This gives a Jew the strength to overcome, even while in exile, all the challenges and all the non-Jews around him, and to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu with joy and gladness of heart. This is the point we learn here: it is the way the holy Baal Shem Tov taught us—“Hear between your brothers and judge justly.” We must understand the Jew, and through that, “judge justly”—we can see a Jew in the right way. With this, we can understand the entire parsha. This is how to read the parsha correctly: “between your brothers.” In the Rebbe’s court, in 5725, there was one Shabbos—that was the year the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana, passed away. That year the Rebbe held a farbrengen every Shabbos; until then, that had not been the usual practice. Generally, the Rebbe would hold a farbrengen only on Shabbos Mevarchim, but in 5725, following Rebbetzin Chana’s passing, the Rebbe held a farbrengen every Shabbos and began speaking more about Rashi’s commentary. He would take a Rashi commentary in the order of the parsha and explain it according to the plain meaning of

17:07 the text. From then on, this became the practice in subsequent years as well. The Rebbe gave wonderful explanations of the plain meaning of the text, and also of the “wine of Torah” in Rashi’s commentary: how Rashi’s commentary contains the depth of the Torah’s inner dimension and depth in serving Hashem. This gave rise to many hundreds of wonderful sichos explaining Rashi’s commentary. That year, 5725, Tisha B’Av fell on Shabbos. Since the practice was for the Rebbe to hold a farbrengen every Shabbos, he held one on the Shabbos on which Tisha B’Av fell, after Minchah. He then explained the first Rashi commentary. Throughout that year, the practice each Shabbos was for the Rebbe to take the first Rashi commentary in the parsha and explain it. He dwelled on the first Rashi commentary, on “These are the words,” and explained, according to the plain meaning of the text, several questions that arise from Rashi’s commentary. Afterward the Rebbe took [unclear] and showed that when you examine the verse and study it with Rashi’s commentary, you see the honor of the Jewish people within Moshe’s rebuke: at the very time Moshe Rabbeinu rebukes the Jews, he also speaks in their praise. Where do we learn that praise? We find it in the way Rashi interprets the verses. And that is the praise of the Jewish people. Rashi was, after all, the teacher of the Jewish people, and as is known, wherever he can, he brings out how dear the Jewish people are.

18:43 In particular, as is known, in each of the Five Books of the Torah, the Rashi commentary on the first verse speaks in praise of the Jewish people. In Parshas Bereishis, the first Rashi commentary says: “Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Torah should have begun only with ‘This month shall be for you.’” That is because of the praise of the Jewish people, for “He told His people the power of His deeds, to give them the inheritance of nations.” The first Rashi commentary brings out the praise of the Jewish people. In Parshas Shemos, the first Rashi commentary says: “Because they are dear to Him, He counted them again by name”; “He counts them at every opportunity”—the first Rashi commentary. In Parshas Vayikra, Rashi immediately explains “And He called,” with an alef: this expresses how dear the Jewish people are, for out of affection the Torah says “And He called,” a term of endearment. In Parshas Bamidbar, on “Take a census of the children of Israel,” the first Rashi commentary says: “Because they are dear to Him, He counts them at every opportunity.” That is Parshas Bamidbar. Then we come to Parshas Devarim, “These are the words”: although these are words of rebuke, they were said “out of regard for the honor of the Jewish people.” Even the rebuke reflects the honor of the Jewish people. And the Rebbe explained then that we can see the honor of the Jewish people in Rashi’s words. For example, one of the examples—I will not go through every detail; I will give just one of the examples—is what it says there, “and Di Zahav.” Rashi says: “He rebuked them over the calf they made because of the abundance of gold they had.” That means...

20:40 He rebuked them over the sin of the Golden Calf, because of the abundance of gold You gave them. Here he brings the verse, right? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Jewish people abundant gold, as it says: “I multiplied silver for her, and they made the gold into Baal.” Right? That is straightforward. Rashi explains “Di Zahav”—what is the connection? The Jewish people sinned with the Golden Calf. But why does Rashi go on at such length? Here Rashi speaks in the Jewish people’s defense. Rashi says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave them an abundance of gold—“How could the son not sin?” as the familiar expression goes. Hakadosh Boruch Hu put them in a situation with so much gold, and from that abundance came “they made the gold into Baal.” But really, it was not their fault. He placed them before such a great test, so one cannot hold that test against them. And the same is true of “in the wilderness,” “in the Aravah,” and “facing the Sea of Reeds”—there is even a defense of them here. You take an entire people out of Egypt, a people who had spent hundreds of years in exile there, and bring them into the wilderness: “a place of venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirst where there is no water.” Into the wilderness. “In the Aravah”—you bring them to a place in the Aravah. What sort of place was it? Rashi says it was a place where immorality flourished, where all those things went on. It was a place of testing. You put people in a wilderness physically, and spiritually, in a place surrounded by every kind of test. “Facing the Sea of Reeds”—you leave them alone facing the sea, with no way out in sight: Egypt on one side, the Sea of Reeds on the other. And then there are complaints. Can one hold this against the Jewish people?

22:22 So in the very verse where Moshe rebukes the Jewish people, he also brings out their virtues. That is why Parshas Devarim is read specifically at this time, during the Nine Days, close to Tisha B’Av, on the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av. Even when we speak of rebuke—and Tisha B’Av is all about rebuke—we could say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, chastises the Jewish people and brings about the exile, and so on. But within the rebuke are the merits and virtues of the Jewish people. Even while delivering rebuke, one brings out their virtues. From this we learn a lesson, as the elder Baal Shem Tov said, [unclear]. When we look at Jews, even when there are things that are not good and rebuke is therefore needed—“You shall surely rebuke your fellow”—the question is how we rebuke them. There are the deeds of the wicked and the deeds of the righteous. One can rebuke someone for the things that are not good, warn against them, say how bad they are and where they lead, and portray him [unclear]. Moshe Rabbeinu comes, the Torah comes, this parsha comes, and they teach us that even when rebuke is given, the love must be heard in it; the merits of the Jewish people must be heard. In this way, we transform darkness into light and bitterness into sweetness.

23:59 And we saw this very point here with Moshe Rabbeinu. As the holy Shelah [unclear] about the parsha, it is Divine providence that we read it specifically at this time: precisely when Moshe Rabbeinu rebukes the Jewish people, the greatest blessings immediately follow. “May Hashem your G-d increase you a thousandfold and bless you as He promised you”—the greatest blessings; “and here you are today, as numerous as the stars of the heavens.” That the Jewish people should be so when Moshiach comes—specifically at this time, their virtues and praises are revealed. May we indeed merit to see, speedily in our days, these blessings fulfilled, with the Jewish people “as numerous as the stars of the heavens.” This will be when Moshiach comes, and these blessings will be fulfilled. Hakadosh Boruch Hu will “increase you a thousandfold”—as Moshe Rabbeinu says—“and bless you as He promised you,” a blessing without end or number: “And the number of the Children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted for its multitude.” May we merit the building of the Beis Hamikdash. As is known, we are now at the eve of Tisha B’Av. On Shabbos Chazon we receive the Beis Hamikdash from afar; may it now be not only from afar, but truly up close. And may we merit that “these days be transformed into joy and gladness and festive occasions.”