We’re up to Dov Omer, the bear says. It’s from Yeshaya Mem Bet (42), pasuk (verse) Yud Alef (11) and Yud Bet (12). This is a pasuk from the prophet Yeshaya, where he’s talking about the time of Mashiach (Messiah). We had done a pasuk from Yeshaya about the lion, which follows these two. Yud Alef and Yud Bet are about the bear, and Yud Gimel (13) was about the lion, where Hashem was going to roar. He was going to judge the people, and we have to know that there’s justice in the end.
But in this one about the bear, we’re really told something very beautiful: at that time, Hashem is going to be praised from every corner of the earth, from the most remote places. Now we have our small pockets of Orthodox Jewry. Baruch Hashem, we feel it in Brooklyn. We might feel that the world is full of Torah, Jewish spirit, learning, and growth. Baruch Hashem, it should grow and grow. But really, these are little pockets. You go a little past your own neighborhood, and the reality is that it’s not there. The farther out you go, the more it’s not there.
Here we’re talking about people in the wildernesses and on the mountaintops, people living in very remote places, people who would know least of all about Torah, Mitzvot (commandments), and Hashem. Even they will be singing Hashem’s praises, calling out to Hashem, and acknowledging Hashem. There will be complete recognition of Hashem through and through. It’s a beautiful anticipation of a good time, a time when the whole world will recognize Hashem and there will be only goodness. It’s really something we have to long for and remind ourselves of in our day: how beautiful and special it is, and how special that time will be.
Hashem is telling us that, and the rabbis bring down that even the cities themselves and the mountains themselves will sing. Here we are in Perek Shira, and we say that all of Hashem’s creations sing praises. So when it says “in the wilderness,” it means the people in the wilderness, but also the wilderness itself. It’s part of Perek Shira: even this prophecy suggests that the whole world itself will sing out Hashem’s praises. It will be a beautiful day, a beautiful and tremendous time. Please, Hashem, let it be soon.
What is it about the bear that might relate to this part of what Yeshaya says? They tell us something about the bear. People have friendly and pleasant associations when they think of bears. It’s funny: we have teddy bears and Care Bears, right? Not all bears, but for children, bears don’t have the same look to us. When we look at a lion, there are no two ways about it: a lion is a lion. A lion isn’t cuddly or a pet. We have places called Build-A-Bear, where you take your teddy bear and put it in different costumes. They wouldn’t have Build-A-Lion. It just wouldn’t work.
A bear is a little deceiving. It looks enticing and friendly, but they tell us that a bear is extremely dangerous. They even say that a bear is one of the only animals that will attack even if it isn’t hungry. Most animals attack only if they’re hungry; they have a purpose for attacking: they want food. But a bear will attack if he’s annoyed, even if he isn’t hungry. A snake isn’t hungry—I don’t know. It doesn’t mean to... Maybe a snake is in a different category of reptile. I don’t know; I’m not going to say I know all the animals. I’m just repeating to you what I read. A bear will attack when it isn’t hungry, and most animals will not.
So what are we being told here? There’s a duplicity. We might look at a bear and think he looks friendly. I would even think that a child might see a bear and not realize how dangerous he is, because his overall appearance doesn’t look frightening. We’ll get into some of the other things in the topic.
You’ve got to understand that bears generally have a very frightening look, but this bear might not necessarily have a very frightening look. Personally, I’m afraid of squirrels, so I’m not in this at all. But that’s what they’re telling us: there’s a duplicity in what we’re seeing.
When it comes to the wildernesses, mountain peaks, and islands discussed here, the rabbis also bring down that we can connect them to the bears in this way: we should be careful. If you cannot connect this with the animals, then the animals will be connected with you. But that’s not the point. It’s one of the most important things I’ve learned. The rabbis also bring down that we can connect this to the bears because we should be careful of some of these very remote places. A person might think they’re alluring, somewhere we’d want to visit, spend time, and be. They might look beautiful and enticing, but it could be very dangerous for a Jewish person to put themselves in situations and places that aren’t Torah-oriented.
We have to be careful: what looks pretty is not always for us. When a place looks like somewhere we’d want to be, we have to think from a Torah perspective: Is this going to be dangerous to my neshama (soul)? Is this place really going to be good for me, or is it a place where the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination) has an extra hold on me? That’s something the rabbis bring down when they talk about something looking friendly but not being friendly at all. We can all think of vacation places and other places people go that bring out the wrong thing in them, not the right thing. A place might be beautiful, the most beautiful place in the world to go, and we might ask, “Why can’t you go if it’s the most beautiful place in the world?” Yet we see that it brings out the wrong thing in people, and it’s not a good place to be.
So not everything that looks beautiful, friendly, and enticing really is beautiful, friendly, and enticing. Again, they tell us about a pasuk from the prophet Daniel—I’ll have to look up where, chapter 7, the 5th verse. The prophet Daniel tells us about a vision he saw in a prophecy. It wasn’t a clear vision saying, “This is the message, so says Hashem.” He saw different animals, and each animal represented a nation. He understood from what he was seeing that there was a message from Hashem. The animals themselves weren’t even clear-cut animals, but one looked like a bear. They said it was like a bear; it represented the bear. What nation did it represent? The nation of Persia.
It says, “And afterwards was an animal like a bear.” Rav Yosef taught that this refers to the Persians, who eat and drink like a bear, are clothed in flesh like a bear, are hairy like a bear, and have no rest like a bear.
What did he say? The Talmud in Avodah Zarah says that Hashem speaks to the Persian nation and asks, “With what have you busied yourselves?” They answer, “We have built many bridges, we have conquered many cities, we have fought many battles, and we did it all for the sake of the Jews.” In the end, they’re going to say, “Look, Hashem, everything we did, we did for the sake of the Jews.” And Hashem says, “Is that true? Is it not true?” You can pretend, but Hashem knows the inner hearts of people. Hashem knows their intentions. You cannot fool Hashem.
Hashem says, “Yes, you built beautiful bridges and roads and cities and technology and everything else you built, and yes, it will be used for the good of the Jewish people. That’s why I let you do what you did. But I know your intentions weren’t for the Jews, so don’t think you’re going to get a reward for doing it, because your intentions were only for yourselves.”
Again, when we look at all the things the world uses and has to offer, we as Jews have to know: Is this something that’s going to be harmful to me, or is it going to help me grow in Torah and in who I am in Torah? The bear represents something we have to be careful about. Even what looks beautiful and friendly may not be friendly to the Jewish people at all.
Recently, girls—young girls—were asking me about our feelings about the Goyim (non-Jews) in general. I said we have to respect them because they’re Hashem’s creations, treat them with respect, and be nice and cordial to them. But we shouldn’t be naive, because underneath the surface it’s very probable that they hate us, and even when they’re nice to us, given the right circumstances, most Goyim will turn against us. There are exceptions to the rule. There are Goyim who were very, very special, righteous Goyim who saved the Jewish people in hard times. There are definitely exceptions to the rule. I’m not saying there aren’t. But a Jew cannot be naive and think everybody is good. You treat everybody well and with kindness, but you’re smarter than that. When it comes down to it, be careful.
There’s that balance, too. Not everyone who looks friendly is really friendly, and not every place that looks enticing is good for us. We have to think past that from a Torah perspective: What is good for the Jewish people? When it comes to what people have built and created, we have technologies and tremendous modern appliances and things available to us today that the Goyim have invented, as well as things Jewish people have invented. We have to think with a Torah head. It looks great, but is it really good for us? Can it be used for good? Fine. If it’s going to be used for harm, then we’re not going to go with it. We’re not going to be enticed by what looks friendly, good, and enticing. We’re going to think about what a person really needs in life to grow and be close to Hashem.
That’s what we’re learning from the pasuk of the bear. The next one: Ze’ev, Ze’ev Omer, the wolf says. Now this guy looks scary. This guy really looks scary. The wolf says.
I changed how I said that word because really it’s not even talking about Hashem there; it’s talking about judges. My on mine, I saw the word and didn’t say the name, but it’s really talking about judges in that pasuk. It’s a pasuk from Shemot, straight out of the Torah, Shemot Chaf Bet (22), pasuk Chaf Chet (28):
“For every item of liability, whether an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or a garment, regarding any lost item about which he says, ‘This is it,’ to the court shall come both their claims. Whomever the court finds guilty shall pay double to his fellow.”
Shemot is excellent, but there is a very complicated question in Exodus 22:8, probably a pasuk that has the whole Gemara written about it. It’s very, very complicated, and it’s talking about responsibility and liability for something I took or something I’m holding for someone. It’s a very, very complicated Gemara. What does the wolf have to do with this? What does the wolf represent, and what is he saying? The big question is: How do you know that the word is here?
The wolf is, they say, the quintessential thief. All right? The wolf prowls around, looks for his opportune moment to grab the sheep, and runs. That’s what he does. He’s not even going to be looking in the wilderness. Don’t hold me to this, because I’m not so good with my animals, but they say he’ll come closer to the farmer or shepherd. He’ll wait around, sneak around, and take that sheep. He doesn’t pick on animals that could fight back. He picks only on the little helpless sheep, takes one when nobody’s looking, and runs away. Most of the time he can get away with it. He’s going to take that sheep and run.
The shepherd’s job is mostly to make sure that the wolf doesn’t come and take the sheep. He has to guard them, but it’s very hard because he’s watching a lot of sheep. Baruch Hashem, Hashem should help us take care of our children, Lehavdil (may we distinguish). You try your hardest, but, God bless them, when there are a lot of them around, you need Hashem to watch them and guide you. Here the shepherd is trying to guide and protect the sheep so the wolf doesn’t come and snatch them.
The wolf is already known as a thief. He’s going to come and try to grab a sheep and run. His pasuk is actually saying how responsible a person has to be. It’s the opposite of what he is. It tells you that what he is doing is wrong, and that, according to the Torah, a person is responsible to a very high level, a very high degree of responsibility. Society today really takes away that concept of being responsible. Everybody is always blaming something else: their background, their society, their mother—everybody else. Nobody takes responsibility. Bottom line, did you do it? “Yeah, but she made me, and she told me, and she said this.” Hello, did you do it or didn’t you? Society doesn’t want to take responsibility for anything anymore, and everything gets blamed on something else. The Torah gives us tremendous responsibility for everything we do, and we have to learn what responsibilities we have so that we can be careful with them.
Al kol devar pesha, for every matter of transgression. It’s anything: every item of Pesha means Pesha is a way, it’s a sin. If I took anything wrongfully, anything that’s a problem of liability, that’s al kol devar pesha. But devar could be a thing, and it could also be a word. So it’s also al kol devar pesha about any word that causes a sin. One connection is that the rabbis say the thief will end up lying and swearing falsely. He took something or didn’t return something, and when he’s brought to court, it will end up being al kol devar pesha as well. It will be a word that makes him sin and a thing that makes him sin, so it will end up being both.
We should also be very careful with kol devar pesha, any word we say that could cause a sin. That’s something we’re responsible for. It’s scary that we’re responsible for every word we say. We should be very careful with every word.
Asher Yomar Ki Hu Zeh. What does it mean that he says, “This is it”? The Gemara discusses it. I didn’t go into the Gemara. I think I got most of my information from Me’am Lo’ez explaining this, and I’m not going to say at all that I understand it. I’ll give you a little information so you can ask your own questions and go home and ask your rabbi, your husbands, or your sons-in-law how it fits into the system and how it really works. But it’s very interesting what they’re discussing here.
One of the things they discuss is Ki Hu Zeh. If someone leaves his item with you, if someone is going away and says, “I’m leaving town, and I don’t want to leave my things unattended in the apartment. Can I please leave my jewelry with you? Can you watch it for me?” And you say, “Okay, I’ll be responsible for it. I’ll take care of it. I’ll watch it for you.” That puts you in a very, very high level of responsibility. When you say you’ll take care of somebody’s things, what are we responsible for as Jewish people? What are we responsible for as Jewish people? What does it mean when I say, “Okay, fine. You can leave it with me. I’ll watch it for you”? Very nice of you. Fine. But what does it really mean? What’s my obligation once I say that?
You’re responsible for taking care of it in a way that it’s not liable to theft or even destruction by fire. You can’t say, “Well, I took care of it as well as I take care of my things.” You don’t have an obligation to safeguard your own things when they get ruined. If you’re not careful, you’re not careful; that’s your problem. But when you take something from somebody else to watch for them, you have much more responsibility.
If he comes back and asks for his things, one situation is that he asks for them and the person is dishonest. I have his jewelry: he gave me a watch, a bracelet, a necklace, and a ring. You’ll help me remember what I said. Now he comes back and says, “Great, thank you so much. I’m back; I want my things.” And you say, “Great. Here are your watch and bracelet.” He says, “Okay, the necklace and the ring. What about the necklace and the ring?” You say, “No, Ki Hu Zeh. This is it. This is what you gave me.”
The person says, “This is what you gave me.” The man could bring this person to Beit Din (rabbinical court) and make him swear: Is this really what you gave me, or did you give me more? If he swears in court and there were no witnesses—if there are no witnesses, you bring him to swear. If there are witnesses, that’s another Ki Hu Zeh. He comes home and says, “Where’s my jewelry?” You say, “Here are your bracelet and watch.” He says, “But I gave you my necklace and ring, too.” You say, “No, Ki Hu Zeh. This is it.” Then all of a sudden your five-year-old comes out and says, “But, Mommy, weren’t these also what he gave you?” That’s Ki Hu Zeh, because that’s it: now there were witnesses that you really had them. You don’t have to bring him to Beit Din to swear. He doesn’t have to swear. The facts are in front of you.
It’s interesting that they say if he comes back and says, “Hi, I’m back, and I want my jewelry,” and the person says, “What jewelry? You didn’t leave anything with me,” and he says, “What do you mean? I left you my watch, my bracelet, my necklace, and my ring,” and the other person says, “You didn’t leave anything with me,” he’s not even supposed to take him to swear in Beit Din. It’s an interesting thing that it says. I can’t say this in front of the rabbi. I can’t say this in front of the rabbi. No way. Thank you, Rabbi.
It’s interesting what it says. If he denies it completely—“You didn’t leave anything with me. I don’t even know what you’re talking about”—then we almost assume that the person is telling the truth. It doesn’t make sense to us today, in our world, but people were more honest in the time of the Gemara. People were a little more honest than we know. They say a person might cheat halfway, but he’s not going to completely say, “You didn’t leave anything with me.” He’s not going to be that bold. They almost assume that if he really says, “You didn’t leave anything with me,” then he probably didn’t. You probably left it with somebody else and forgot who you left it with.
Someone asked, “But there are a lot of contracts then. This could have been written in a contract. ‘I’ll let you this, this, this, this,’ right?” So really, when it comes to this, you’re right: writing things in a contract is halacha (Jewish law), based on the law that a person should not place a stumbling block in front of a blind person. If I borrow or lend something without it being written down or having witnesses, then I’m helping someone to sin.
Let’s say someone wants to borrow something from me. Let’s say they need to borrow $1,000. I say, “Okay, fine, I’m going to give it to you.” But halachically, I’m really required to write it down and have witnesses, not because I don’t trust the person, but because people forget. If I don’t write it down with witnesses, then if the person forgets, I’m helping them to sin. If they say, “I didn’t borrow money from you,” and you say, “Look, remember we signed?” and show them, they might say, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. I really forgot.” This could happen. It really is the person’s responsibility to write things down, but we don’t. When we don’t write it down, that’s when these things could happen. It’s definitely the right thing to do.
So you have to leave the person with a loan or something. You know you gave it to them, and they say they don’t have anything and don’t give you anything. What do you do? You go to the Beit Din, and the Beit Din will tell the person what to do. But they felt that a person who denies it completely is more likely to be telling the truth than a person who denies it halfway and says, “No, no, this is only what I—You didn’t give me this; you didn’t give me the whole thing.”
So in that situation, there are two parts. How can we say that one person is right and the other absolutely wrong? How can we do that? That’s going to be the Beit Din’s decision. It’s still going to be a Beit Din. The point is whether we want to... It’s interesting, too, that they say when they ask a person to swear in court, in the Beit Din, in Hashem’s name, even if the person was innocent, he wouldn’t want to swear. Sometimes people would give the money they hadn’t taken just to avoid swearing.
There was such a thing: a Jew might say, “I lent you a thousand dollars, and you didn’t pay me back.” The other person says, “I did pay you back.” There are no witnesses. They say, “Okay, come to court and swear in Hashem’s name that you did pay him back.” The person did pay him back, so you might say, “Okay, great. I can go and swear in Hashem’s name. I know I gave it back.” But in those times, they wouldn’t do it. They would rather give the extra thousand dollars and not swear. It makes them look guilty. It really makes them look guilty. But there was such a fear of swearing that they wouldn’t want to swear.
We try not to swear. But I’m saying that we’re not on the same level as they used to be, even in our fear of swearing. There was a fear of swearing in Hashem’s name. Even if it was the truth, a person wouldn’t swear. Today you hear people saying, “Oh, I swear, I swear, I swear.” They wouldn’t even say something like that, even without Hashem’s name. It’s something we should shake at the thought of. Our level has gotten lower and lower; it’s not the same as it used to be. They would rather pay the money: “I’ll just pay the money. I’m not swearing.” We might think, “Oh, that proves the guy’s wrong,” but really it proved that they would not swear. So they didn’t want to bring a person to swear in court if they thought he didn’t have to. It’s not something I know the ins and outs of. I definitely don’t know the ins and outs of it. It’s an interesting concept of liability.
When somebody leaves something with me, how responsible do I have to be? For instance, if somebody leaves an item with me—let’s say a watch—and he’s going away and coming back to get it, if the watch breaks while it’s in my possession, do I have to pay for it? Is it my responsibility? Yes, depending on the circumstances.
First of all, there’s a difference between watching it for him, keeping it for him, and borrowing it. A borrower is more responsible than someone who is guarding or watching it. If he asked me just to keep his watch for him while he’s away, and I put it in a safe place and lock it in my vault, then he comes home, I open the vault, and give him his watch, but it isn’t working, am I responsible? No, it’s not my responsibility. I don’t have to pay for it, because I was as careful as you could be with the watch, and I didn’t use it.
But if you use it—if he told me, “Can I borrow your watch? I’m going somewhere, I need to know the time, and I don’t have my watch. Can I borrow yours?”—I borrow his watch and wear it on my hand. I don’t do anything that should make it break, but as a borrower, if it breaks while it’s on me, I have to pay for it; I’m responsible. There’s a difference between a borrower and someone who is guarding it.
If he tells me to watch his watch and I put it on my night table, where I keep my jewelry, and someone comes and robs it, am I responsible? Yes. It shouldn’t have been on your night table because you didn’t put it in a safe place. “Oh, but that’s where I keep my jewelry.” Tough. Your jewelry is your own problem, but when you’re watching something for somebody else... If I’m tossing it around while I’m giving my kids a bath and it falls in the bathtub, then I’m absolutely responsible, because that’s negligence. You have to be responsible.
If he comes and says, “Where’s my watch?” and I say, “What watch? I didn’t take a watch. You didn’t bring the watch with me,” and then witnesses come and say, “Hello, isn’t this it?” then I have to pay double—not just for the watch, but double—because then I really tried to steal it.
What they tell us about a garment is really funny to me. You have to guard it. If he leaves his suit and says, “I’m coming next Shabbat, and I want to leave my suit here. Can I leave it in the closet?” My son-in-law—I’m cleaning out my closet, and I find suits that aren’t mine and aren’t my husband’s. They don’t fit him; they’re not the right size. He has to go to shul (synagogue) or something. He likes to have an extra suit. It’s one of his older suits; he keeps it at my house. If he asks me to guard it for him—“No, I like to keep it by you”—really, I should tell him, “But you understand I’m not responsible.” The truth is, I’d buy him a new suit; it wouldn’t bother me.
But if somebody leaves a garment, how much do we have to safeguard it? It says we have to put it in a place where it won’t be taken by a thief, and where it won’t be damaged by moths or rodents, but also where it won’t be damaged by fire. Fire? They say yes. It should be kept in a metal case. If anybody asks you to watch their garment, tell them, “I’m just going to put it in my closet. Is that okay with you? I don’t have a metal case for it, and I’m not sure how to protect it from fire.”
One more thing I was reading about, which I found very interesting: I don’t understand the halacha or know the little ins and outs of it, but there are categories of how responsible a person has to be. It should just give us an idea and a concept, maybe of what questions we should ask or how careful we should be when we have other people’s things in our possession.
It talks about when someone gives you money to take somewhere for them. They say, “Could you bring this money somewhere? This is my money. Oh, good, you’re going to Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), where my son is learning. Please take this money for him and give it to him when you get there.” If I’m holding somebody’s money, how responsible do I have to be for it? Very responsible, to the point where they say the best and only way is for it to always be in your hands. You can’t put it in a pocket. It depends on which pocket, but if you put it in a pocket, it has to be in the front pocket. If you get undressed at night, you can’t just take it off and put it on the counter or the bed or wherever you’re going to leave it. They say that if you can sew it into a garment during the day, that’s good, and at night it should be buried under the ground so that you hide it.
If someone asks you to take money for them or watch money for them, we should make sure to say, “I’m just going to put it with my own money, and I’m not going to be responsible for the money.” Otherwise, we don’t even understand the concept. The truth is, a person would repay it. If someone told me to give $100 to my son in yeshiva and I lost my wallet, I would feel like I should just give them another $100. Should I or shouldn’t I? If it was a large amount of money and it’s going to be a She’ela (question), then the courts will decide. But there’s halacha for everything. Anything we lend, anything we’re holding on to—all of this involves tremendous responsibility.
That’s what they say: when you give something to somebody, say, “This is yours; you do what you want with it.” When you take clothing, for instance, she tells us, “This is your suitcase, this is your clothing. You do what you want with it.” If, God forbid, something happens, I’m not responsible for it. It becomes yours, so you can do whatever you want. If you want to repay it, it’s your choice.
Another reason for doing that is that when the customs people ask you, “Is everything yours?” you’re not going to lie. We don’t lie, even if it gets us into so much trouble.
My husband and I were coming home from my niece’s engagement party in Argentina. We were late for the flight because our car service broke down on the highway. There were a lot of us, with a tremendous amount of luggage, and the flight was waiting for us to get there. They were going to absolutely kill us. Luckily, it was before 9-11, because if it had been after 9-11, there was no way they would have let us on the plane. They were trying to be nice and let this whole group of people rush onto the plane, so the man was quickly going through the routine of asking the questions he had to ask. He asked my husband, “At any time, did you leave your luggage unattended? Was there any time when your luggage wasn’t with you?” He was running to get us onto the plane, and my husband said, “Yeah.” The man said, “That’s supposed to say yes?” My husband said, “But we went touring, and we left our luggage with the hotel security.” The man said, “Oh my goodness.” Now he didn’t know what to do. He had to tell the truth. Nobody tells the truth. “Then I put you on the plane?” He was so mad at my husband for telling the truth, because now they had to check the luggage. He didn’t want to check it. He was like, “Oh my gosh. You go here; you go there.” It was total chaos. But my husband wasn’t going to lie. He didn’t care what they were going to do, what they were going to say, or what it was going to cost us. If they asked whether we had left our luggage anywhere, the answer was yes. He left the luggage somewhere, so he wasn’t going to lie. You don’t say, “Just tell them it’s yours.” No, you have to say, “This is mine.” But we don’t lie. That’s the second reason for doing that.
But I would also want to say, knowing the laws as they are, that I don’t want to be responsible. I’ll do my best, but I don’t want to be responsible according to the laws of the Torah for how responsible a person has to be.
Another question: People forget things in your house, and you don’t know who they belong to—the coat, the jacket, the bracelet. I don’t know what to do with them. The question about people leaving things in your house and not coming back for them is difficult. They’re not coming back for them. It’s not so easy to know what to do. There’s one opinion that bothers me very much: they say you have to hold on to it until Mashiach comes. That bothers me tremendously. You have to hold on to it until Mashiach comes.
Some people who regularly have a lot of guests and people coming in and out of their house will have a sign somewhere saying they’re not responsible for things people leave. People in the summer sometimes have pools where people come and go, leave their towels and other things, and you don’t know whose things they are. It’s very hard. If they don’t have a sign saying that if you don’t come and get your things, they’ll be dealt with in a certain way, it sounds like you don’t want to do that. But if the opinion is that you have to save them until Mashiach comes, it’s very hard.
I don’t know. You really have to ask the rabbi specifically. In some cases you can assume the person gave up on ever getting the item back, and in some cases you can’t, so it’s not a simple question. It really isn’t, and I’m not the one to answer it. If you find out I can throw them away, I would love to throw them away, but I don’t think it’s as simple a question as people think. Halachically, we would really have to ask specific questions based on the details. It’s good for people I know who have a lot of people coming in and out—even people they don’t know staying in their house—to have a sign somewhere visible saying, “If you leave your things here after a certain amount of time, we’re going to have the right to throw them out.” It’s hard, but we’re very responsible according to halacha. There are some cases and opinions that say I have to save something until the end of time, and then hold on to it forever and ever and ever. We’re extremely responsible, so we have to know what questions to ask and the right way to say it and do it, because halacha demands a very high level from us. We’re not just like the regular people of the world. We are Bnei Yisrael (Children of Israel). We’re guided by Torah and by law, and we really have to know what it means to be honest, responsible, and according to the law. We’re so far removed from it in the secular world that it’s hard even to relate to it.
That’s really the idea, the concept of how responsible a person is. Going back to that first line again, al kol devar pesha, even for every single word we say, we have to be at a very high level. We have to know that we have to ask many questions to be a proper Jew and uphold the laws properly. What does it mean when it comes to swearing and lying? It’s really why we don’t have the Beit Din we used to have.
The Beit Din we used to have only really worked when people had Yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven), when people feared Hashem. The whole concept of our Torah system of Beit Din doesn’t really work if people can lie without even flinching, or swear by Hashem’s name and not care. It doesn’t mean anything to them. That’s why we really don’t have that system. That’s why the system fell apart. That’s why it can’t work anymore. It really only works with Yirat Shamayim. There used to be much more Yirat Shamayim in the world. What you’re asking is true, but it wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened because people brought to Beit Din would do whatever the Rabbi said. Today you say, “I’ll bring you to Beit Din,” and the person is going to laugh at you. What could they do? They have no power. People have the audacity to show that they have no respect for Torah, no respect at all. Therefore, the system no longer works. When the system was in place, it worked because people feared Hashem and followed the Rabbis. Now, unfortunately, we’re in a different situation in time.
No, you always have to go to Beit Din. You always have to go to Beit Din, and if, at the Beit Din, you need to go to regular court, the Beit Din will tell you that you’re allowed to take him to regular court. But you never go to regular court against a Jew before Beit Din. The Beit Din has to give you permission to go to secular court.
Shual Omer, the fox says, the fox says, the fox says: “Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper stories without justice, who works his fellow without payment and does not give him his wages, and does not give him his wages.”
What do we know about the fox? What’s the first thing that comes into your mind? Tricky, sly. The sly fox is what stories use when they need an animal with that connotation. He’s sly, he’s tricky, and there’s an evilness to him. It’s not just Chochma (wisdom), but a certain evil Chochma. He’s a con artist, a swindler. He takes advantage of people in a smart way that hurts them, and they don’t know what hit them. He’s the kind of person who harms people in a tricky, scandalous, con-artist way. That’s what the fox represents.
This pasuk in Yirmiyahu warns a certain king named Yehoyakim. It was a very complicated time, at the end of the kings before, I believe, the first destruction. It was the Davidic line, but they had sinned, and the destruction was almost going to come. It starts with Yoshiyahu. Yoshiyahu was a king who began being king when he was 8 years old, right? So his father was Yoshiyahu. He was a king from when he was 8 years old, and he reigned for 31 years. He was righteous and did what was right in the eyes of Hashem. You’re so happy when you read that about a Jewish king, because it hurts you when you hear it the other way. He was king of Yehuda, from the Davidic line.
What happens after that? Yoshiyahu was a righteous king who was renovating the Beit Hamikdash (Temple). He wanted to repair it and get everything in order. He sent workers into the Beit Hamikdash to clean it out and see what needed repair. The workers found a Torah scroll between the walls, but it was open to an unusual place: the curses that would happen to Bnei Yisrael when they sinned. They were very shaken when they saw it. They brought it to King Yoshiyahu and showed him: “This is what we found.” The prophet Yirmiyahu came to him and said it was a sign from Hashem. There was a lot of idol worship going on in Bnei Yisrael, and therefore Hashem was going to bring the destruction.
Yoshiyahu was a righteous king and decided to try to rectify the situation. He went out, literally and physically, from house to house, breaking down any Avodah Zarah they had and taking away their bamot (altars), where they would offer sacrifices to the idols. He ruined them and made them tamei (impure). He sent out his officers and went from place to place, trying to clean out all of Eretz Yisrael. He thought he had done it; he thought he had completed it and cleaned out all of the Avodah Zarah. He felt very good, but unfortunately, Bnei Yisrael still secretly had some idols hidden that he had missed, and there was still Avodah Zarah among Bnei Yisrael.
Then an Egyptian army wanted to pass through Eretz Yisrael. They didn’t want to fight with Eretz Yisrael; they were going to fight with a neighboring country, but they wanted to pass through Eretz Yisrael. There is a portion in the Torah that says that when Bnei Yisrael are completely righteous and there is no Avodah Zarah in the land, a nation won’t even come just to pass through. So Yirmiyahu says, “There is no Avodah Zarah in the land. Why are they coming to pass through? I should go out and stop them from passing through.”
His mistake was that he didn’t ask the prophet Yirmiyahu, “Should I stop them from coming through the land, or should I allow them to pass through?” Yirmiyahu would have told him, “Allow them to pass through. There are still secret idols among Bnei Yisrael.” This was about Yoshiyahu, but Yirmiyahu didn’t know. As a prophet, if Yoshiyahu had asked him, Yirmiyahu would have told him. Had Yoshiyahu asked, “Should I stop them from coming through?” Yirmiyahu would have answered, but Yoshiyahu didn’t ask. He didn’t ask the prophet. He went out to battle the Egyptians who were coming to pass through, and he was killed in battle.
The rabbis say that his death in battle was both a punishment and a blessing. Hashem said, “You are righteous, and I do not want you to be alive at the time of the destruction of the Temple. But you were wrong not to ask Yirmiyahu the prophet whether you should go out to battle, and therefore you will die in battle.” So the fact that he died in battle was a punishment, but the fact that he died before the destruction of the Temple was a blessing. Hashem didn’t want him to live through the destruction. The destruction was going to come, and he wasn’t going to live through it.
Yoshiyahu dies, not us, now his son becomes king after his father. He is extremely wicked, unfortunately.
Yehoachaz is the son. I’m sorry, I messed up your notes. I went back. He is going to come; he is still going to come. Yoshiyahu is the father. Now he has some sons, and each one is going to take a turn being king. They’re going to take him—one of his sons is also going to take his course. Yehoachaz is now king instead of his father. He is 23 years old when he becomes king, and he reigns for only 3 months. He goes out to battle Paro, called Paro Necho, and he is imprisoned and captured by them. The reason he went out to fight the Egyptians was that he wanted to avenge his father’s death. As soon as he gets into the kingdom, he wants to fight the Egyptians, but he is captured and imprisoned.
Then this Paro takes another son and makes him king instead. His real name, just to confuse matters a little more, is Eliakim. But when the Paro makes him king, he says, “I’m going to call you Yehoyakim. I’m changing your name.” It’s something my mother-in-law does when she gets a new housekeeper. She can’t deal with “You are this and you are that.” She just says, “You are Maria.” She can’t remember their names, so she changes them. The kings used to do that when they were still ruling them but giving them a king to rule. The king wanted to show that he was really in charge, so he says, “You could be king, but I’m going to tell you what your name really means.” Like Paro changed his name. That’s a good one, too. The reason was to put him in his place and say, “I am giving you the right to be king, but don’t think you are anything. You are really my puppet. You are there because I am putting you there.” So he changed his name to Yehoyakim.
He was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned for 11 years. He was tremendously evil. He was an evil king. He reigned for 11 years, and he was 25 years old when he became king.
When Nebuchadnezzar came against Yerushalayim, he demanded that Yehoyakim come out to him. Yehoyakim was rebelling against him, and Nebuchadnezzar wanted to send him out. Yehoyakim knew he was going to be taken. I believe he is the one who goes up to the roof—or that is Yehoyakim. We’re going to skip that. I’m not sure if it was someone else, Yehoyakim and Yehoyakim, all right, in the same time period, but they take him out. Now we’re back to our pasuk.
Yehoyakim was a very evil king. Besides everything else, including the idol worship he reinstated among Bnei Yisrael after his father had eradicated it, he was very involved in building palaces for himself. He wanted to make them bigger, more beautiful, higher, taller, and better than all the other palaces. But he exploited people, making them work for him without wages. He was cruel and barbaric in the way he treated people. He didn’t pay them what they were supposed to be paid. He was terribly against the laws of Torah: a person could have a worker, but if you employ a worker, you have to pay and take care of that worker. He was tremendously evil when it came to that.
This pasuk says, “Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper stories without justice, who works his fellow without payment and does not give him his wages, and does not give him his wages.” Yirmiyahu came to the king and told him this was what Hashem said; he told him this prophecy. He said, “If you continue in this way, you will come to a horrible death. The enemy will drag you through the streets until you die, and you will never be buried. But if you change, you will be blessed, Hashem will continue to keep the dynasty of David in your family, and everything will be wonderful and good.”
Could you imagine? When Nebuchadnezzar comes and tells him this is what Hashem said, he totally ignores it. He isn’t fazed in the least. He laughs him off and throws Yirmiyahu out, and the prophecy comes true 100%. When Nebuchadnezzar comes to get him, he binds him, ties him, and pulls him through the street until he dies, and he is never buried.
It’s an amazing thing. We can’t understand it, and please, Hashem, let the Mashiach come. We should have a time when, as we said before, everybody is righteous and everybody praises Hashem. There was a beautiful thing in yesterday’s class on Tehillim, where it said that the sons will follow their fathers. That’s something we don’t see with the kings. We didn’t see that with the kings. It’s so heartbreaking to see a son. Very often in history, we see that it won’t be like that until the time of Mashiach. At the time of Mashiach, there will be a righteous king and a righteous son, and they can remain righteous forever and ever and ever.
Hashem is warning us how careful we have to be to pay people their wages on time, to be fair and honest in our business, and to acquire wealth. There’s no problem with acquiring wealth; acquire wealth with righteousness. It doesn’t say you’re not allowed to build your palace. In fact, the prophet tells Yehoyakim, “Your father also had palaces. Your father also had wealth. He was also a king.” It doesn’t mean you have to be cruel and dishonest or treat people who work for you unfairly. You want a palace, have a palace. Don’t do it by stepping on other people’s toes. Don’t do it by cheating people. Don’t do it by cheating people, because if you do, woe unto you.
So it wasn’t a sin to have palaces. It wasn’t a problem that he wanted them bigger, higher, and better than everybody else, although his Middot (character traits) might not have been so wonderful. He was allowed to do it, but he should do it with righteousness. Do it with righteousness. Be careful and meticulous about halacha. Hashem is very meticulous about how we treat other people, our responsibility to people, our responsibility to Torah and Mitzvot, and the way we interact with each other. Hashem is extremely careful about it, and we have to know how careful we have to be in that Zechut (merit). Hashem says He will bring back the Davidic line. He will bring back the Mashiach. Everything will be as it’s supposed to be. Bezrat Hashem, it should happen soon.