A Vort On Parshas Re’eh: Why Does Hashem Give Us Such Difficult Tests?

00:17 Parashat Re'eh. Parashat Re'eh, we have a lot of mitzvahs. One of the things the Torah talks about in this week's parasha is a very interesting thing, is dealing with a navi. How do we know if a navi is a true navi or he's a false navi? You know, there were neviim that were not real neviim. They were fake. They pretended to be neviim. And sometimes it's hard to tell whether somebody's a real navi. That means that Hashem really spoke to him and told him to tell us Hashem's message, or it's just somebody pretending he's a navi and making up that, uh, Hashem spoke to him, but really Hashem never spoke to him. Yeah, a navi had to be a big tzadik, but this guy who is making up stories that never happened is obviously not a tzadik, and Hashem would never speak to such a person. So how do we know the difference? So the Torah tells us one of the things we need to do when somebody comes and says, "Hashem spoke to me and told me that you guys should go and fight a war against a certain country, or you should go and, uh, do a certain thing." Okay? Um, how do you know he's a real navi? How do you know it's real? So you ask him to make a miracle. A miracle doesn't mean that he has to perform something wow, like a mountain is lifting up and f-flying up to the sky. A miracle means that he has to

01:56 predict. He makes a prediction that he says, "Listen, tomorrow exactly at noon, this and this will happen." Something that's not very likely to happen, but he makes a prediction. Let's say there hasn't been rain in the country for, like, five months, and it's very hot outside, and there doesn't seem to be any clouds, so there clearly doesn't seem to be any rain coming. But he tells us that you should know tomorrow exactly at noon, exactly, not a minute later, not a minute earlier, the clouds will gather, and there will be a thunderstorm. Uh, that's something that's very surprising. How can anybody know that? Especially after it hasn't been raining for so long. So if he says that, and he's, uh, right exactly on the minute, exactly at the minute when he said it's gonna happen, then you believe him, then you know he's a true navi. And whatever he tells you Hashem told him... that Hashem told him to tell us, you have to believe him. Now, what if he's off by one minute? He said it's gonna come at, at, at, at noon, twelve o'clock sharp, and it happened a minute later, twelve oh one. He's not a navi. He has to be exactly right, everything to the minute, to the second. Now, Torah tells us, though, there, there will be people who will not be good people, and they will not be real neviim, but they can sort of play magical tricks. They can make-- sort of predict the future, and it seems

03:46 like they know what's gonna happen. Maybe they're stargazers. Sometimes people look in the stars, and they think they understand how things... And like the stargazers of Paroh, remember? They knew some things. They can tell from the stars that Moshe Rabbeinu will be born, and, and, uh, th-they told Paroh that he should throw all the children, all the babies in the, in the river. Because they did see something, but they couldn't see exactly. A real navi can tell you exactly the minute it's gonna happen. But sometimes it seems like somebody who is performing, like, miracles and making predictions, and he's very impressive. He, he does these amazing things. And it feels like, you know, he, he should be a real navi, but he's really not a real navi. He's a rosha. He's a bad person who's making up stories that Hashem spoke to him and told him in a nevuah. Hashem made him a navi, and Hashem told him, "Tell the Jewish people to do this, to do that." But he's a liar. So says the Torah one thing you have to remember. Even if somebody comes along and seems to make a lot of miracles and makes predictions, he tells you what's gonna happen, and it happens, if he tells you to do an aveira, he says, "Hashem came to me to say that you guys should do an aveira." Or he tells us, "You know what? There's a certain mitzvah you don't have to do anymore. From now on, you don't have to keep

05:16 Shabbos on Sund-- on Shabbos. You keep it on Sunday." Or, "You can-- You don't have to put on tefillin anymore." If he says that, you know he's a liar because Hashem will never do that. Hashem will never change even a single mitzvah. 'Cause the Torah and the mitzvahs come from Hashem, and Hashem is here forever. Hashem is eternal, right? So the mitzvahs are also like Hashem. They're like part of Him, and the Torah is part of Hashem. So just like Hashem is always gonna be here, Torah and mitzvahs can never change. They're always gonna be the same. So if he tells you, "Hashem spoke to me to tell you that the Torah, the mitzvah has changed," you should know he's a liar, and you should tell him, "Get lost." Actually, um, you have to punish him. You have to punish him because he's a bad person. Now, Moshe Rabbeinu then goes on asking the question, why would Hashem send us a person that is so good at making miracles and predicting the future, right? And he made such a big impression, right? Made such an impressive, uh, show where it seems like he knows the future. He sounds like a navi, but really he's a rosha, he's a fake. Why would Hashem make a person as such a rosha be able to know the future or to be able to make miracles? Says Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem is testing you. God sometimes wants to test us. He wants to see if we're really gonna do the

06:59 right thing. Here comes a person, and he seems to say these amazing things that are gonna happen, and they really do happen. Maybe not exactly the way he said it because he's not a real navi, but it's very impressive how he knows the future, right? And he does maybe other miracles too, right? He, he walks on the water. Maybe he can walk into the fire, right? And does all kinds of crazy things. And people say, "Wow, he must be a navi." Says Hashem, "No, no, no. If he comes and tells you, 'Oh, you don't have to eat kosher,' then you should know he's a false navi, he's a liar, he's a rosha." Now, why would Hashem make a person who's such a rosha have these powers, these amazing ability, right? To predict the future, to make miracles. Why would Hashem do that? If he's such a rosha, Hashem should make sure that he can't do these things. The answer is, Hashem wants to test us, to see if we're gonna listen to him. We know the truth, that the truth can never change. And if he tells you you should stop doing a mitzvah or change a certain mitzvah, don't listen to him. If he tells you, "Oh, Pesach should be in the middle of the summer. We should do Pesach in August," right? "Hashem told me that's what you need to do from now on." You know he's a liar. You know you can't listen. But he makes these very, very amazing tricks and,

08:23 and, and miracles. Don't, don't, don't. Don't be fooled by that, okay? So Hashem is testing you to see. So Hashem on purpose gives him these powers so you can be tested and see if you're going to do the right thing or not, right? Now, I just wanna tell you something amazing. The word for testing in Hebrew is called nisayon. A nisayon. It's called a test. The same word, nes, this comes from the same word. They come from the same source, the same word. Nes means a miracle. Nes also means a pole, you know, like a flagpole, something that stands up high. So what do you think the connection is between a miracle and a flagpole that stands up high? It's obvious, because a miracle also stands out, stands out. Everything seems to work naturally. Sunrise, sunset, trees grow, animals, you know, walk around. You... Everything seems, like, predictable. Then there's this amazing event, right? The sea splits, the Yam Suf splits. That's not a normal event. It stands out. It's as if it stands up high. That's called a nes, a miracle. It stands above nature. It, right, it doesn't act like everything else in nature. It acts in an unusual way, and that's called a nes. But what does a test have to do with this? Why is a test also called nes, nisayon, from the same word? It's because a test is des- is made specifically by Hashem so that He can lift you up, high up. Just like a miracle is high

10:03 up, higher than nature. Same thing when you have a test, and then you have a very big difficulty doing what Hashem wants, and you do it anyways. You don't listen to the yetzer hara. You pass the test. Then that test will m- lift you up, spiritually, of course, and make you so much closer to Hashem. S- A lot, a lot closer. Much more than you can ever imagine. And Hashem gives you the test for that purpose. Now, a test can be in different ways. It can be a test, for example, Hashem sends a navi that seems to be a very interesting person, making these amazing miracles, but of course it's only a test. And then he lies, and he says, "Hashem told me you should stop doing this mitzvah." Then of course it's a test. There can be a test when a Jew is in Russia, and the communists say, "Hey, you Jew, you can't keep Shabbos." It's a test. So you, as a Jew, show strength, and he's not afraid, and he does what Hashem wants. But there can also be a test in a different way. You know, there's no navi coming. There's no communist Russia. But there's a yetzer hara inside of you that wa- makes you want something really, really badly. "Well, I really wanna go play outside with a ball, but my tati tells me I need to go learn my Chumash for tomorrow. But I really wanna go play ball." It's so hard. It's so difficult, because the yetzer

11:42 hara wants you to do this so badly, and you really, really want it. And then you say, "No, I'm gonna do the right thing." That's an... That's a test. And you know what? Hashem m- made that test. He placed that test in front of you to see how you're gonna act. And if you do the right thing, Hashem says, "Now I'm gonna lift you up, make you so much closer to Me, because you passed the test." If you, if you do a mitzvah, you get close to Hashem. But not like a test, but a test is much more. A test is much more powerful. It really raises you up very high. People that pass tests can become great tzadikim. There's a story in the Gemara. Rabbi Akiva saw a man on a horse. His name was Nasen, and he saw a pillar of light on his head. He couldn't understand this Nasen. Is he a special tzadik? I never heard of him. Rabbi Akiva knew all the great people of the generation. Never knew who is this Nasen. Who is this guy that he has this-- a big spiritual light shining over his head? So he asked people who he was. They said, "Well, he's just a simple guy." "So why does he have a light?" "Well, he had a big test, a terrible test. He had a big yetzer hara to do an aveira, a big aveira, a terrible aveira. And it was very hard for him. He almost did the aveira. Then at

13:16 the last minute, he said, 'No, I'm not gonna do it.'" So Rabbi Akiva said, "Ah, now I know why I see a light over his head." I'm gonna tell you one last thing with the Rebbe. There was a man who became Frum. He didn't grow up in a Frum home with Yiddishkeit and Torah and mitzvahs. But because of the local shliach where he lived, the local shliach taught him Torah, and he started davening, putting on tefillin, Shabbos, and kosher. But there's one problem. He wanted to marry a woman who was not Jewish. And he knew this woman for a long time, and he very, very much wanted to marry a non-Jewish woman. And he said to the shliach, "I can't-- This I can't stop. I'm willing to take on everything. I, I keep kosher, Shabbos, I'll put on tefillin, I'll daven, I'll do everything. But one thing, I'm gonna marry a non-Jewish woman," which is a terrible thing for a Jew to marry somebody not Jewish. So the shliach said, "Come with me to the Rebbe. We'll ask the Rebbe what to do." Now, this man went to many rabbonim, and the rabbonim said to him, "Ah, it's terrible. You wanna marry a non-Jewish woman? That's disgusting. It's so terrible." They made him feel so bad that he has this yetzer hara to marry a non-Jewish woman. He felt like so bad. But it didn't help him because when you feel bad, it's very hard to serve Hashem. You have to serve Hashem with simcha.

14:57 But if people make you feel bad, then you don't feel like serving Hashem. You feel like giving in to the yetzer hara. So he wasn't happy with, with what they told him. They told him, "It's a terrible thing. You have a terrible yetzer hara. That's disgusting." And he felt disgusting. So of course, he didn't feel like ser-- doing the right thing because it's-- he's disgusting. So when he came to the Rebbe, you know what the Rebbe told him? The Rebbe said to him, when he told the Rebbe what he wants to do, that he has this yetzer hara to marry a non-Jewish woman, the Rebbe looked with-- at him with a smile, and the Rebbe says, "I'm envious of you. I envy you." The, the man was very surprised. "The Rebbe envies me? I'm such a disgusting person. I have such a bad yetzer hara. How can the Rebbe be jealous of me? The Rebbe is jealous of me?" That's what the Rebbe said, "I'm jealous of you." So the Rebbe explained to him, "I'll tell you why I said that. You should know when Hashem gives a person a test, like Hashem gave you a test, He's giving you a test now. He's making your yetzer hara push you very hard to, to do the wrong thing, to marry the wrong wife. Do you know why? Because when you pass this test that's so difficult, you have a chance to, to become so much closer to Hashem. Nobody can come so close than somebody

16:26 who passes a difficult test. And the more difficult the test, the harder it is, if you pass it and you don't listen to yetzer hara, you get even closer to Hashem." And the Rebbe says, "I never had such a yetzer hara that you have. I never had such a test from Hashem." He said, "That's why I'm envious, 'cause if I had such a test, I could have risen, gone up closer to Hashem so much more than I am now." So you should remember, kinderlach, whenever you have a difficult time with doing the right thing, learning or davening, listening to your tat or your mamie, or doing a mitzvah, doing an aveira, the yetzer hara comes, and it's so hard to really... Why is Hashem making it so hard for us? Hashem does it because He loves us, 'cause He knows if, if He gives us a hardship, He gives us a difficult thing to do, something that is-- tests us, it's a test, because that makes us so much stronger, so much closer to Hashem, like nothing else can do. Not even a mitzvah can bring you that close to Hashem. Have a good Shabbos.