Today’s class is dedicated Le’ilui Nishmat Yitzhak ben Chana, Mr. Irving Missry a’h, by his family, on his 22nd yarzheit.
When Yaakov Avinu gave the final blessing to his children, he called them in and said,
“Gather and I will tell you what will happen to you in the future.” And then again, he said “Gather and listen, sons of Yaakov…”
What is this back-and-forth?
Rashi tells us that the midrash says that Yaakov Avinu saw that among the letters of the Shevatim, there was no ח Chet or ט Tet.
And he wanted to tell them what the future would be, but he saw that they did not have a ק kuf or צ sadi, which spells ketz/ end, in their names either.
What does this mean?
The letters chet and tet spell the word Chet, which means, “sin.” So that was good, right?
But why didn’t they have the letters that spell “Ketz/end?”
The Chatam Sofer says something fascinating about this pasuk. As we have mentioned in the past, the sin of Sinat hinam/baseless hatred is worse than the three cardinal sins, because the sin of Sinat Hinam was, in the words of the Gemara,“not revealed.”
And because the sin was not revealed, the end was not revealed.
The first Bet HaMikdash was destroyed for sins that there were in the open, so the end was revealed as well. It was a 70 year sentence.
But the second Bet HaMikdash was destroyed due to sins of the heart, Sinat hinam, which was under cover, so the end was not revealed. That is why we are still in exile.
The fact that the letters for Chet/ sin were not there was a problem. The sin could not be seen, and therefore, the ketz, the ending could not be seen either.
That is why Yaakov Avinu told them to gather twice- because if you gather and there is no Sinat hinam, then things can be worked out in the end, and Yaakov would be able to tell them what would happen.. if they did Teshuva, everything would work out.
But when we are separated, there is no way the geula/ redemption can come.
As we have said, even Teshuva doesn’t work in a generation where there is Sinat hinam.
We have to constantly work on this concept, because the Second Bet HaMikdash was destroyed due to Sinat Hinam, and the third will only be rebuilt when we fix the sin of Sinat hinam.
So that is our job- to bring the chet of Sinat hinam above the surface, to be aware of it, because that is the first step.
It’s a silent killer, if you aren’t aware of it.
The more aware we become of Sinat hinam, the closer we are to fixing it, and the more the Ketz- the end of time, will be revealed as well.