You Have To Do TeShuva | Parashat HaAzinu

0:03Is that Hashem judges us for every single thing. And here, the Chachamim used the Pasuk, in Gemara Bava Kama, page 58, they used the Pasuk in Parashat Ha'Azinu, chapter 32, verse 4. HaTzur tamim po'olo, ki kol darchav mishpat, El emunah ve'ein avel, tzadik ve'yasharu. The Rock, meaning Hashem, perfect is His work. For all of His paths are justice, a God of faith without iniquity, righteous and fair is He. This Pasuk is what the Chachamim use in multiple places as the source for why no one in their right mind should ever think that Hashem will let go of even a single sin, smaller sin. Everything that I said. Oh, this one. I'll just let it go. This is not to depress anyone or get anyone to have an anxiety attack. This is to clearly let us know what we're dealing with, and to know that we have to do teshuvah. No one has a free get out of jail free card. Everyone has to do teshuvah for something, something you may have done 20 years ago, something you may have done 20 minutes ago, and

1:25The point is, all of us have work to do. And that's what Or Yisrael, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, explains to us in Or Yisrael. And he says, if you're alive, that means Hashem wants you to do teshuvah. Yeah, what do you mean? I'm a big rabbi? Exactly! You have to do teshuvah. What do you mean? I just started? Exactly! You have to do teshuvah. What do you mean? I'm a female? Exactly! You have to do teshuvah. What do you mean? I'm a young kid? I just got Bar Mitzvah? Exactly! You have to do teshuvah. What do you mean? I'm a non-Jew? Exactly! You have to do teshuvah. If you're alive, you have to do teshuvah. If you're alive, you have to do teshuvah. If you don't have to do teshuvah, or you got to such a point where you can't do teshuvah, Hashem sees the road, He sees this person is not going to do teshuvah. Then He transfers you to a different department. But this is the important thing. This is the source. There's no. This is what Yaron Reuven said. This is Gemara. This is our Oral Torah. It's important to know, because some of these things that we take into, if we take them into consideration, we realize that it's a big weight to carry. Without asking, 'What's in the bag?' What's in the bag? I need to know what's in the bag before I continue carrying it. If I continue doing this after I understand what's in it, is it cocaine? Am I going to get arrested? Or is it fruits and vegetables? I need to ask myself, 'What's in the bag?' Now, if a person

2:54Follows the Halakhah, follows what the Ba'al Shem Tov and his holy rabbis said to do. Then he can get to real Emunah. Now, what does it mean to get real Emunah? People love to talk about Emunah, and the Torah mentions Emunah, but we could only get it on a certain path in our tefillah every day. we have a pasuk from Parashat Beshalach where after Am Yisrael crossed the ocean the Sea of Reeds they saw the Egyptians drown and they were amazed. And we read this in our tefillah. Here is a pasuk in the Torah: Parashat Beshalach, chapter, Book of Exodus, Shemot, Chapter 14, verse 31. It says Israel saw the great hand that Hashem inflicted upon Egypt and

4:21And the people feared Hashem and they had emunah in Hashem and in Moses' servant. That faith in Hashem and Moses' servant. So here we see that this is not only an event that took place, because the Torah is not a history book, but it's also an instruction manual of how to get to emunah. And after this I'm going to tell you story, it was worth not only coming, was worth being born for to hear the story, and then you guys go to sleep. I HaShem Yisbarach is telling you the following: Am Yisrael, that was Dor De'ah, that saw all the plagues that happened in Egypt. They saw the water turned to blood; they saw the frogs coming, some the size of a dinosaur, and little frogs en masse, all these crazy things that are technically against nature, and still had a problem with emunah when they got to the Sea of Reeds. Still had a safek. Some of their neighbors had such a safek. They stayed in Egypt and were killed. The ones that left, the best of them, still had some doubts.

5:35some doubts, but after they crossed the Sea of Reeds, and Hashem split the ocean into 12, as the Rambam explains, each tribe in one tunnel, and they saw that all the Egyptians died and all the Jews survived, and so on. Then it says, they saw at that point, they saw the hand of Hashem and how He inflicted Egypt. They saw that He inflicted Egypt and not the Jews, meaning they saw this is miraculous. Miraculous to the point where we know it's not just nature. It's for us. It's already custom-catered for us, custom-designed for us. And then it says, "And the people revered Hashem; they feared Hashem." And then, "Vaya'aminu b'Hashem uv'Moshe avdo." Why? He says, "First, the person needs to know who he's dealing with. Who's the hand that's spinning the globe? Who's the hand that's feeding you? Who's the hand that's worrying about whether you're gonna have a wife or a husband or children or parnassah or refuah shlema or anything that you want? Oxygen in your lungs. Who's the one that gives it to you? As soon as you realize who you're dealing with, a normal person naturally becomes scared.

6:50That's what it says. Once they saw the hand of Hashem, they feared Hashem. Why? He's the one that's doing all this? It's not just nature. It's not happenstance. It's not a coincidence. It's not a tsunami. It's not Pharaoh. It's not Moshe. It's Hashem? Everybody became scared. And after they became scared, what it says? And they had emunah in Hashem. Only after they had Yirat Shamayim, then we can start talking about Emunah. After we have Emunah in Hashem, then we have Emunah in Moshe Rabbeinu. Meaning, after I have, I pay attention to who's running the world, Then I realized, Hashem, I'm scared. But that's a good thing. That's a good fear. Why? Because I know who I'm dealing with. Now I have emunah that this same hand that feeds me, it's going to feed me tomorrow too. Why not? If He fed me today, why should I worry about tomorrow? And that's what Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkanos in Gemara Maseches Berachos says: a person who has food today but asks, 'What will I eat tomorrow?' That's a person with a small emunah.

8:01Small emunah. He doesn't have real emunah. Why? If you have today, why are you worrying about tomorrow? If you understood that the food that you got today came from the same Hand, came from the same Hashem, why are you worrying about tomorrow? So, Rabbi Noam Elimelech of Lizhensk said a pirush on the Pasuk in Parashat Behar, chapter 25, verse 20. He says, a person that has emunah, has real emunah in Hashem, doesn't question Hashem. Doesn't question Hashem, doesn't question where will the blessing come from? What will I eat tomorrow? What will my retirement look like? He doesn't question Hashem. He goes, okay, this is what's from Hashem. Okay, that's what's going on. Yeah, but you have a problem. That's what's from Hashem. That's the will of Hashem. The problem is what Hashem wants. There's a reason for it. A person has full emunah, real emunah, not emunah that you have a sticker on your bumper sticker. You know, a sticker on, it's not that. Emunah, you really have emunah. He doesn't question Hashem. He doesn't question Hashem. Why? He knows everything is from Hashem. The good, the bad, whatever it is, all from Hashem. But, as soon as a person

9:24Has this got to such a level? He says Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem. He's constantly talking about Hashem. But then Hashem gives him a test. All of a sudden there's no food in the fridge. All of a sudden there's no money in the bank. All of a sudden the IRS seizes his account. All of a sudden there's a problem. And he doesn't say the same Baruch Hashem. He says differently. He says, why did you do this to me, Hashem? Instead of Baruch Hashem, it's why Hashem. How many times do we ask, just today, why Hashem? Today, not just the last week, not just our lifetime, just today, I'm why Hashem, why, why, why? We always ask, why Hashem? Rabbi Elimelech says, as soon as he asks why Hashem, he ruins his bracha. the bracha that he got to, the high level that he got to with emunah, and Hashem was giving it to him, giving it to him, and finally gave him the test. And he failed it, not by having failed it by saying, 'I'm gonna go worship an idol,' 'I'm gonna become a Christian.' No, he simply asked this tiny question: 'Why is Hashem doing this to me?' He ruined his bracha. Doesn't mean that he ruined his reshut; just means that the high level of bracha of blessing that he had, you have to start again. We fell down; we have to rebuild again.

10:42And that's why he has to take on a big mitzvah at that point to do teshuvah.