Parashat Ki Seitzei

Welcome to Parshah Sashavua with Rabbi Garari, this week's Parshah, Parshah's Kisete. Action-packed Parshah with so many different mitzvahs, including mitzvahs that do with war, mitzvahs that do with the way we're the rebellious son, tzitzis, marriage, divorce, all kinds of things. And of course, we have been saying that the Parshahs that we read in this month all have to do with elul and preparation for the new year. And the Parshahs, Kisete, the beginning is very obvious. I think we mentioned something similar last week. The Pthummish begins with, Kisete la milchoma al oivecha, when you go out to war upon your enemies. And the language is somewhat strange because it says, it should say, Kisete la milchoma al oivecha, when you go out to war on your enemies. And the Lava Tzereb explains many times that this idea is to teach us that Kisete la milchoma, we go out to the war, the spiritual war, the war between the yaitzer, taivah and the yaitzer hara, the animal soul and the godly soul. And we're afraid and we think it's overwhelming. We need to know Kisete, as long as we go out, we're confident. And we begin and understand that we need to fight the war, we need to subdue, so to speak, the animal soul, the yaitzer hara, and put under the dominance of the godly soul. If you're ready to do that and you're committed, you need to know right from the outside, al oivecha, you are on top of your enemies. You will be victorious. You have already won the war. You just need to believe that you can and believe that Hashem will give us the khech to do that. So that's something that is very obvious right from the beginning of the parasha. But I want to also talk about the end of the parasha. The end of the parasha is the mitzvah of remembering what a molek is to the Jewish people and the mitzvah of erasing and eradicating the nation of our molek. Now of course we know that's the thing we read around Purim time. It's very much a new Purim story, the molek. But nevertheless, it's in this week's parasha. And at the end of the paragraph, at the beginning of the parasha, you know, the beginning says, you know, you remember what a molek did to you when you came out of Egypt. And then it says, at the end, the timech as a zecher, a molek erased the memory of a molek, mitachaz hasomayim under the heaven. And then I'll lay tushkoh, I shouldn't forget and so on. So the question here is, what does it mean, mitachaz hasomayim under the heaven? Of course, I mean, what else? Where else is a molek? On top of the heaven? Like, what does that mean? So I'm going to share with you a piece from the story Allah, I've quoted before. It says the following. It says, the Gomorrah tells us that a rover, this is in Gomorrah Shabis, Lafalaam al-Alawah, the Gomorrah says, ommar rover, rover says the following. Be shalsha mahnisim odum ladim and a person after 120 enters into judgments. They say, they ask him the following questions. The first question that a person is asked is, nasato v'nasoso v'nasato be'emuna, which literally means, did you buy and sell, did you give and take, did you do business faithfully? Second one is, kovato itim latayra, did you set aside time to learn tera? And before I should ask the question, why would they be asked first about business and only asked about amunah, about tera? I mean, shouldn't the first question be, did you learn tera? Did you set aside time to learn tera? Did you connect to Akadish Baruch? And then, only after that, the person has to leave the base of meditation, do business, learn to live, do this, learn to live, the question should be, did you do business faithfully? And the svarim answer says that the question is different. It's not about business. It's about, did you discuss, did you give and take, did you internalize the concept of amunah? Did you permeate your heart, did you instill in your heart and the lats of your family, amunah, faith in Hashem? And this is specifically asked before, did you set aside time to learn tera? Because amunah in Hashem comes before learning tera. We see the Ten Commandments that Aseris Debra started with word on earth, Hashem alakir, Hayyam Hashem, you've got to believe, before you can serve the tera. If there's no amunah, then the tera remains just an academic subject and doesn't really connect us with Hashem. Amunah is a prerequisite to learning tera properly. We find when Hashem gave the tera after Yitzhish Mitzrayim, first there was Yitzhish Mitzrayim, so first there was coming out of Mitzrayim and only then was Shvuos later when the tera was given. Why? Because first the Yidna had to be permeated with amunah through the going out of Mitzrayim, through the amazing miracles they saw, through the whole revelation of Hashem that they saw while going out of Mitzrayim, that had to be the first thing, that to really believe and see Hashem's hand in action, and only then could they come to matan tera and receive the tera and learn the tera, and be makabal tera. He says, as we prepare for a new year, the same thing has to happen. What is elul about? Elul coming up to the year where we're going to commit to Hashem to learn tera, to keep his misfists and so on, we have to first build up amunah. We have to, at the very, elul is like the very, we were preparing for the very beginning of a new journey, a fresh journey, and we have to be able to answer that question, have we instilled in ourselves proper amunah in Hashem, which even comes before the question of Yisra'at time to learn tera. And that is why in one of the parashis, in parashis it is said that we read during elul, always we read during elul, it ends with the mu'am of amulik. Why? With the svarim explained to us, what was amulik? Amulik didn't care if we learn, even if we fulfill the tera, as long as the tera remained under the heaven, tachas Hashemayim, which means that as long as the tera is disconnected from Hashem, as long as learning tera is nothing to do with the coming completely one with Hashem, that's fine, you want to learn academic subject, you want to do a couple of symbols, you want to do mitzvah, no problem. But as long as it remains, mitzvah Hashemayim, which is why the Torah says, mochai timche, you got a timche as zekher amulik, erase the memory of amulik, mitzvah Hashemayim. Take away this whole concept of the Torah is mitzvah Hashemayim because it isn't. Torah is connected upon the heaven, Torah is connected with Hashem. It's a nois in the Torah, it's the Torah of Hashem, it's a divine wisdom, it's a divine gift. And that's why we have to go through that as we reflect on the year by, we have to remember, not just do we learn Torah, but remember do we have amuna before learning Torah? How much amuna do we have? We have to take away the amulik mitzvah Hashemayim. Amulik wanted to take the Torah and bring it under the heaven. There's nothing to do with Hashem, no. That's why we wanted to cool off our amuna as it says in the pasakash, karcho baderach. They met you in a way which karcho also means career is cold, they made it cold without passion, without amuna, without being passionate about connecting with Hashem. That's okay, then you can learn Torah. That's why we know we erase amulik before it comes. And that he says also one of the famous acronyms of Elul, Elul anil adoydi v'doydi li. Anil adoydi means first I am to Hashem, I believe in Hashem, I'm connected to Hashem. Once I'm connected to Hashem and I have amuna, then v'doydi li, then Hashem can talk to me and teach me and give me the Torah. And that's why the first question is, no sato, no soso, no sato be amuna, and only then kovata itim la Torah. So we have to spend part of Elul, we spend extra time davening, the Bikr K'yosiv says, we focus on what it means to be a Yid and we build up our amuna so that after we can really commit to Hashem we can really learn Torah properly with the real kudushah, with the real holiness. And that's the anil adoydi and then v'doydi li, which brings about the G'ulah and it brings about the k'Siv v'chasim etayvah for the new year. Have a wonderful day and a good Shabbos.