Rabbi Doniel Staum

A Complete Life

In Parshas Vayelech, Moshe Rabbeinu goes before Klal Yisrael and tells them, “I am 120 years old today and I can no longer go out and come in” (Devarim 31:2).

Moshe Rabbeinu has reached the end of his life and his tenure as the leader of Klal Yisrael is coming to a close. Rashi explains the significance of the word today in the statement, “Today, my days and my years have been completed” by citing the Gemara (Sotah 13b) which teaches that Hakadosh Baruch Hu fills the days of the lives of tzaddikim. A complete life is one in which a person fulfills the purpose for which those days were given.

Rabbi Moshe Hauer zt”l, who tragically passed away approximately a year ago, addressed this very idea in one of his final writings. Moshe Rabbeinu surely fulfilled his purpose. But think about it. Moshe Rabbeinu never led Klal Yisrael into Eretz Yisrael. The entire trajectory of Yetzias Mitzrayim was supposed to culminate with the Jewish people entering the Land of Israel, and Moshe himself never got there. How, then, can we describe his life as complete?

Rabbi Hauer invoked the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (2:21): “It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Rabbi Hauer wrote: “Moshe may have had an unfulfilled dream for himself and Klal Yisrael, but he continued to work until his last day towards its fulfillment.” And then he expressed a profound definition of what it means to live a complete life: “A complete life is not necessarily one that reaches every goal. It is one that continues the march toward that goal.”

That is an extraordinary idea. A person who is always striving and moving forward is a person living a complete life. Whether we ultimately accomplish everything we hoped to accomplish is not entirely in our hands. That belongs to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. What is in our hands is the effort. Our responsibility is to put forward everything we have, for as long as we have it.

As Rabbi Hauer explained, our task is not to complete the entire process of redemption ourselves. Our task is to play our part in that great continuum ambitiously and determinedly, moving ourselves and those around us closer to the destination, while creating the framework for those who will come afterward. Eventually, we pass the baton to someone else, who continues the march forward. The fact that we may not personally reach the finish line should not frustrate us. It should shape the way we approach life. We are playing the long game.

There is a remarkable story told about the Sfas Emes.

The Sfas Emes passed away in his fifties, a relatively young man, certainly for such an extraordinary Torah leader. At the levayah, his son and successor, the Imrei Emes, turned to his brother and said, “Our father had arichus yamim, length of days.” His brother was puzzled. Arichus yamim? He had not even reached sixty years old. The Imrei Emes explained. “I did not say he had arichus shanim, long years. I said he had arichus yamim, long days. There are people who live many years but do not fully live their days. And there are people who may be granted fewer years, but they fill their days.”

That is what Chazal mean to underscore about Moshe Rabbeinu. He did not merely mean to say, “I reached the old age of 120,” but rather to emphasize that “I fully lived the days I was given.” Perhaps that is one of the greatest berachos a person can ever receive: not simply to have many days, but to fill those days.

In Shemoneh Esrei we say, “U’varech shenaseinu ka’shanim ha’tovos—Bless our year like the good years.” Remarkably, we continue saying those words even at Minchah on the final day of the year. There may be only moments remaining in the year, and we are still asking Hashem, “Bless this year.” What is left to bless?

Even in its final moments, an entire year can still become a good year. Maybe we did not accomplish everything we intended to accomplish. Maybe there were goals we never reached, resolutions we did not maintain, opportunities we missed, and mistakes we wish we could undo. But if we can learn from that year—if we can draw lessons from our experiences and allow everything we went through to propel us toward growth—then even a year that did not unfold exactly as we hoped can become a good year.

The ultimate measure of a year is not simply whether we reached every destination. It is whether we continued moving toward it.

Rabbi Ari Bensoussan

Your Rav Dessler Moment

I don't know how many people know the remarkable stories of Rav Eliyahu Dessler's life. We know Rav Dessler as one of the great baalei mussar of the twentieth century. But behind the Torah were extraordinary experiences that shaped the person he became.

At the outbreak of World War II, Rav Dessler was already living in England, safely removed from the inferno that was consuming European Jewry. But his family was not.

Shortly before the war began, his wife and daughter had traveled back to Eastern Europe to visit family. Then the war erupted, borders closed, and suddenly they found themselves trapped on the other side. For six long years, Rav Dessler lived separated from his wife and daughter Six years of worrying, crying, davening, and wondering whether he would ever see them again. Eventually, baruch Hashem, they survived. Their journey itself was extraordinary, ultimately taking them as far as Australia before the family was reunited. But imagine those years of separation.

There were no cell phones and no instant messages. Communication was painfully slow and uncertain. A single letter arriving at Rav Dessler's home could become one of the greatest moments of his entire year.

And then, one day, a letter arrived.

It was from his family. And from the feel of the envelope, Rav Dessler could tell that there were photographs inside; photographs of the daughter he had not seen in years. Imagine holding that envelope after years of wondering what your daughter looks like now,  and after years of not knowing precisely how your wife and child are doing.

You would expect him to tear it open immediately. But he didn't. A neighbor noticed that the mail had arrived and hurried over, eager to hear the news. He found Rav Dessler sitting calmly at his table. “What happened? Did you hear from them?” “Yes,” Rav Dessler answered. “How are they?” “I don't know.” The neighbor was bewildered. “What do you mean you don't know?”

Rav Dessler pointed to the envelope. It was still sitting there, unopened. “Why haven't you opened it?” Rav Dessler explained something extraordinary.

He had trained himself that whenever he felt that he had to have something immediately, whenever a desire became so powerful that it seemed to demand instant satisfaction, that was precisely the moment he waited. “Because if I cannot wait, then who is controlling whom?”

So Rav Dessler said, “I am going to wait another ten minutes. I am going to remind myself that I am in control. And then I will open the letter.”

Think about the level of self-mastery that represents. This wasn't dessert or some insignificant pleasure. These were photographs of his wife and daughter after years of separation. And yet Rav Dessler understood that the greatest freedom a human being can possess is the ability to say, “I want this desperately, but my desire does not control me.”

We imagine that self-control suddenly appears when we face the great tests of life. It doesn't. Self-control is a muscle and muscles are developed through repetition. So practice on the small things. There is food in front of you that you cannot wait to eat? Wait thirty seconds. You receive a message you desperately want to read? Wait thirty seconds. You are about to see someone you have been waiting to see? Give yourself a moment.

Not because there is anything wrong with enjoying it. But because you are reminding yourself: I decide when I act. My impulses do not decide for me. Those thirty seconds can become your Rav Dessler moments. Moments when you reclaim control over yourself.

Perhaps this is part of what it means for a human being to become more G-dlike. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is never driven by impulse. He is never controlled by anything outside Himself. And when the Torah asks us to exercise restraint, it is teaching us to become masters rather than servants of our desires.

So begin with thirty seconds. And tell yourself: this is my Rav Dessler moment.

Rabbi Moshe Donnebaum

The Two African Tribes

Imagine that there are two tribes in Africa.  Tribe A worships the lion and the lion is their god. Tribe B worships the cow and the cow is their god. Naturally, Tribe A glorifies the lion and dismisses the cow, while Tribe B glorifies the cow and dismisses the lion.

Now imagine that a group of people from Tribe A undergoes a religious conversion. They abandon the lion and begin worshipping the cow. And immediately afterward, disaster strikes them. There is drought and disease and their land is devastated. And somehow, the epicenter of all this suffering seems to be precisely those people who abandoned the lion and began worshipping the cow.

Now imagine the members of Tribe B looking at what happened and declaring, “You know why those people are suffering? Do you know why G-d punished them? Because they worshipped the cow!” That would make absolutely no sense. They themselves worship the cow! If you believe that the cow is god, why would you interpret someone else’s suffering as a punishment for worshipping the very god that you worship?

And yet, remarkably, that seems to be exactly what happens in Parshas Nitzavim.

The Torah describes individuals who abandon the covenant with Hashem and follow the gods of the surrounding nations. The consequences are devastating: “The land becomes sulfur and salt, completely burned and barren, reminiscent of the destruction of Sodom and Amorah” (Devarim 29:23).

And then something fascinating happens. The nations of the world come and witness the devastation and all the nations ask: “Why did Hashem do this to this land? What caused this extraordinary wrath?” And they answer their own question, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Hashem and went and worshipped other gods” (ibid. v. 24)

But who is saying this? The nations! The very nations who themselves worship other gods look at Klal Yisrael and say, “You know why this happened to them? Because they worshipped other gods!” How does that make sense? Why don't they say, “They chose a different religion”? Why don't they defend the avodah zarah? Why would idolaters themselves suddenly recognize that serving idols was the cause of the catastrophe?

Perhaps we can understand this through a powerful yesod of Rav Chatzkel Levenstein.

There is a famous expression: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” At first glance, why should that be true? If someone genuinely believes there is no G-d, why should being frightened suddenly change his philosophy? If atheism is the conclusion of a purely intellectual process, then a foxhole shouldn't change the conclusion.

Rav Chatzkel Levenstein explains a profound idea. Emunah in a Borei Olam—recognizing that this universe has a Creator, that there is hashgachah, that the world is not simply an accident—is fundamentally accessible to the human mind. So why can intelligent, sophisticated people fail to see it? Because human beings do not always evaluate reality with complete objectivity.

We have negios, personal subjective biases and notions. A person may want the freedom to live as he chooses: to eat what he wants, look where he wants, pursue what he wants, and live without feeling answerable to a Higher Authority. And once acknowledging Hashem carries consequences for the way I must live, I am no longer a completely impartial observer. That is shochad, bribery, and the Torah tells us that bribery blinds (Devarim 16:19). And the most powerful bribe may sometimes be the one we give ourselves. My desires can influence what I am prepared to believe.

But then the person enters the foxhole and suddenly, the bombs are falling. He doesn't know whether he will be alive in another hour. And in that moment, many of the ordinary desires that occupy a human being disappear. There is only fear. And when the desire disappears, the shochad disappears with it. For one moment, the person may see reality differently.

That is what happens in Parshas Nitzavim. Yes, these nations worship idols, but then they witness something terrifying. An entire land has been devastated and they see destruction reminiscent of Sodom and Amorah. And then they ask, “What is this enormous wrath?” Imagine the fear. In that moment, their usual world has been shaken and their taavos and negios recede. Suddenly there is clarity and even the idolater can look at his own idols and recognize how empty they are.

That is the lesson for us. The more a person becomes master over his desires rather than allowing his desires to become master over him, the clearer his vision becomes. Emunah and bitachon become clearer. And through that clarity, we can recognize more and more the One Who created the world, guides the world, and oversees every detail of our lives.

Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

The 450 Bus

The passengers had been waiting for the 402 bus. But when the bus finally pulled up, it wasn't the 402. It was the 450.

The doors opened, and being Israel, everybody immediately crowded onto the bus. The passengers were furious. “We've been waiting for the 402! Call the bus company and tell them to send us a 402 immediately. We're not leaving until it comes!” The driver listened patiently. “Okay,” he said. “But first, I need everybody to get off the bus.”

Reluctantly, the passengers stepped back onto the street.

The doors closed.

Then, through the windows, they watched the driver stand up from his seat, reach toward the front of the bus, remove the number 450—and replace it with 402. The passengers stared. Then they smiled.

What a guy! He was actually going to change his route for them. Everyone happily climbed back aboard. Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of Israeli buses. Or at least, that was how the story appeared.

Because that wasn't what had happened at all. The truth was that the original 402 had broken down, and back at the depot, they needed another driver to take over the route. But none of the drivers wanted the assignment. Who wanted to arrive at a bus stop filled with angry passengers who had been standing there waiting?

Finally, one driver volunteered. “Okay. I'll do it.” He took a bus, put 402 on the front, and headed toward the stop. But just before he arrived, he pulled over and stood up and removed the 402 and replaced it with 450. Then he drove around the corner. The passengers saw the wrong bus and became angry. They demanded a 402. And after everyone got off, the driver simply changed the sign back from 450 to 402. Suddenly, the very same bus driver who would have been greeted with anger was greeted like a hero.

Nothing had changed except the number.

So often in life, we are standing at the bus stop waiting for our 402. We know what is supposed to arrive and we know what we deserve. We know how our life is supposed to unfold. And then a 450 pulls up. This wasn't the plan. This wasn't what I was waiting for. This isn't what I wanted. And we become frustrated.

In fact, very often our frustration is in direct proportion to our sense of entitlement. The more convinced I am that life must unfold according to my expectations, the angrier and more disappointed I become when it doesn't. But emunah teaches us something entirely different. There is no random bus or random delay. There is no random disappointment. Everything is under the hashgachah of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Sometimes what looks like the wrong bus is actually the right bus wearing the wrong number. We simply don't yet know the route.

When a person truly internalizes that, he begins to experience life differently. “If Hashem sent this bus, where is He taking me?” The difference between frustration and emunah is not that the circumstances change. Nothing changes except the number we place on them. What we called a disappointment, we begin to call hashgachah. What we called a delay, we begin to call direction.

What we called the wrong bus, we discover was the bus Hashem intended for us all along.

Even the 450 can be a gift.