We continue in the 13 attributes of mercy, as delineated by Rav Moshe Cordovero in his sefer Tomar Devorah . We are up to trait number four, L‘She’erit Nachlato . She’er means relative, like She’er Besaro , and Nachlato means an inheritance. God looks at us as if we are She’er Basar/ we are related t o Him, and Nachlato , we are His inheritance. And therefore, God says, What should I do to the Jewish people? They're My relatives. As God refers to the Jewish people in Shir Hashirim , They’re My daughter and My sister, My mother. Tehilim 148, 14, calls the Jewish people relatives- ישראל עם קרובו Yisrael Am Kerovo Karovo can mean close to, and Karov is a relative. God says, We're related. And if I'm punishing My relative, it's hurting Me. What am I gaining? The pasuk in Yeshaya 63,9 says בכל צרתם לו צר In all of the Jewish people's pain, there's pain to God. Furthermore, it says in Shoftim , 10,16 ותקצר נפשו בעמל ישראל which Rashi explains as God , kal v’yachol, didn't have space in Hid soul in order to tolerate watching someone else suffer. He didn’t have room for it, so to say. God didn't have the space, even though they were wrong, and even though they deserved it, God couldn't see their suffering and therefore He had to end it. This is an unbelievable concept. We spoke about Savlanut , which was the beginning of this discussion. We have to be Sovel when our friend insults us or hurts us. But when it comes to seeing the Jewish people in pain, in his words, לפי שאינו סובל צערם וקלונם, מפני שהם שארית נחלתו: God cannot tolerate, God cannot hold seeing Jewish pain and disgrace because we're related . Sometimes you just can't watch. Recently, I had to go to a doctor with a male relative, and as he was being checked, I couldn't stand in the room, and not because of any tznuit reasons. I just couldn't bear to see the wound that he was showing to the doctor. It hurt too much. So too, Hashem, kal v’yachol , can't see the pain, but God can't walk out of the room. So what does God have to do? God has to relieve the pain. That is the trait of God called L’She’erit Nachlato. A nd before we apply it, let's just reiterate this concept. In a pasuk in Devarim, 4,7 it says, כִּ֚י מִי־ג֣וֹי גָּד֔וֹל אֲשֶׁר־ל֥וֹ אֱלֹקים קְרֹבִ֣ים אֵלָ֑יו Who is great like the Jewish people, like God, Who is (not close to us, says the midrash, but) related to us . And the Yerushalmi in Masechet Rosh Hashana says, People like to recognize their wealthy, prestigious relatives, not their poor unknown relatives. But Hashem doesn't work that way. He says, Am Kerovo . I don't care where the Jewish people are holding, they're My relatives. They're my close kin . And that's the way we have to deal with all Jewish people. B’Ezrat Hashem, we will apply this to the Jewish people, and develop this concept more at length. Have a wonderful day.

We continue going through the sefer Tomar Devorah, which talks about God's Thirteen attributes of mercy and how we are supposed to emulate them. We are up to the third Middah, which is called the V’Over Al Pesha / He passes over sin. . “ This is a great attribute, ” says the Tomar Devorah, “ because God's forgiveness is not through a messenger. God Himself forgives ," as it says Ki Imcha Haselicha/With You, is forgiveness. And what is the Selicha ? God washes away the dirt of the sin… and he quotes two Pesukim: Yeshaya 4,4, אם רחץ ה׳ את צאת בנות ציון “If God will clean and wash the excrement of the daughters of Sion,” and Yehezkiel 36, 25 says, וזרקתי עליכם מים טהורים I will sprinkle upon you purifying waters. And that's what Over Al Pesha means, that God Himself cleanses the sin. When a person sins, it creates negative forces. It creates dirt, smells, odors. It's not something that we can pick up on, but actually, in Parashat Toldot, when Esav came in to Yitzhak, it says he smelled the smell of Gehinom that came in with him. And when Yaakov walks in, he smells the smell of Gan Eden on him. This is because our sins and our Mitzvot produce different forces, different energies. In the Sephardic prayers on Rosh Hashanah, it says, “ My sins, if my friends would smell them, they would run and stay far away.” Sins smell. And not only doesn't God walk away from us, but He, so to say, changes the diapers, which is something that only a mother does. Rav Yitzhak Blazer gives the mashal that if a stranger saw a child that was all soiled, he’d walk out to the other room. He wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Only a mother comes in with love and a hug. Ignoring the smell, she cleans the child in the most delicate of fashions, until he comes out sparkle and clean. And that is , kal v’yachol, what Hashem does for us. He cleans up our mess. Now, what does that have to do with us? Says the Tomar Devorah, That's the way man has to act. He shouldn't say, ‘I have to fix what he messed up?’ No. A person has to say, ‘if God Himself cleans up our mess, we have to clean up the other person's mess.’ That means, practically speaking, that if somebody causes a problem in a business, in a school, etc, you are now going to go and fix up their mess. That takes a tremendous amount of self-control. And sometimes it’s a situation of I told you so. You many find yourself in a situation where you tried to avoid the problem, but the person didn’t listen to you and created a mess. But you are not just going to let them sit there and suffer. You're going to pull them out of their mess. Raising children definitely gives many good opportunities for this Middah. This is one of God's attributes, and the more that we arouse our merciful attributes, the more God arouses His towards us. Have a wonderful day.

We've been talking about the concept of כל העושה עבירה קונה לו קטגור אחד Whoever does a sin buys (or creates) a negative force. But since we don't like to end on a negative, let’s flip to the positive side of this: When a person does a mitzvah, he creates a positive force. As the Mishna says, he gets a defense attorney. As we say in our prayers, “ There should stand up, a defense attorney for us .” An angel that’s a defense attorney is created from our Mitzvot. The Sefer Ya’avetz, from one of the great rabbis that survived the Spanish Inquisition, says Listen to the the story of Masechet Chagiga: There was a man that only knew one tractate- Chagiga, and he reviewed and reviewed it anytime he had an opportunity, his entire life. He never stopped. When he passed away, he was not near his family. So God sent an angel that looked like a lady, and this lady was crying, “ My husband, my husband .” Everyone gathered around as the lady cried so bitterly, and said, “ My husband respected me. He never forsook me my whole life. He treated me properly…bury him with great respect.” They asked her what her name was and she said, “ Chagiga .” An interesting name. They did some research and found out that this was not his wife. They found out that he had been learning Masechet Chagiga his entire life. This man had created an angel from all his Torah learning. And he says, that's what it means that הָעוֹשֶׂה מִצְוָה אַחַת, קוֹנֶה לוֹ פְרַקְלִיט אֶחָד. He who does one Mitzvah, acquires one advocate. The Maharsha points out that the pasuk says, “ Someone who comes to do good, to purify himself, they help him.” He says it should say God helps him. Who is they ? And he explains that when a person thinks of doing a good deed, that in itself creates positive angels. In plural- 2 angels. It says, “ They help him.” How? They help him to continue the act fully. And that is the positive side of our ability to create forces-it may not be directly connected to Ahavat Yisrael, but it’s an important lesson, nevertheless. We should not just focus on the negative angels we create with our Averot , but focus on the positive angels we create with our mitzvot. Have a wonderful day.

We continue in the Sefer Tomar Devorah, discussing the traits of God that we have to emulate. Trait number one was God's level of tolerance and patience, which we call Savlanut . Trait number two is called Noseh Avon , which literally means to carry a sin. The term first shows up when Kayin tells God, “ Is my sin too great to carry?” Simply, it's poetic, But the Tomar Devorah explains that when a person sins, he creates a negative force, like the Mishna in Avot 4,13 says, One who sins (buys or) creates a prosecuting angel. As we have discussed, nothing in this world can remain alive without Somebody , namely God, keeping it alive. So that prosecuting angel goes in front of God and says, “ So-and-so created me, and I need to be sustained. ” Really, God should say, “ I'm not sustaining a negative force that I didn't create. Go to the one that created you, and he will give you sustenance.” Depending on the level of sin, the sustenance of the negative angel might be the person’s arm, leg or whatever is required in order to satisfy this negative angel’s need. But God doesn't do that. Rather, He carries and tolerates the sin, like He does with the rest of the world. He feeds the sin. Angels live off of heavenly food, and this angel that was created by our sin is fed by God. We created him. We created a negative angel, and yet God feeds him. For how long depends on one of three things. He says, -When a person does teshuva, that causes the negative force to disappear, -or the man will suffer in this world -or he will suffer in the next world. We don't want either of those options. We prefer Teshuva. But until that happens, it could be years that God is sustaining this angel. That's what Kayin meant when he said, “ Is my sin too great to carry ?” and the Midrash Tanhuma says on that, “ You're able to carry (sustain) the whole world and my sin is too heavy? You can't take care of it?” What a tremendous amount of tolerance, to continue to sustain the negative force that the person created. So what is the application to man? If someone wronged you, and the person's negativity is still there, nonetheless you continue to allow him to, and sustain him, even though he is working against you. For example, if a worker was stealing from you, and you still payed his paycheck. Of course, that's an extreme example. We will continue to discuss this, but essentially, being Noseh Avon is when someone is doing something negative, and even though he continues to do negative things, you carry him. We might not do this with our workers, but we do it with our children. We will continue to carry a child and sustain him, even when he’s acting in a way that we don't agree with. And that's really a trait of God. Have a wonderful day.

We've been discussing the Middah of Savlanut , which means to tolerate or be patient . Another term for this trait is Ma’avir Al Midotav , which literally means someone who lets his Middot “pass.” Rashi describes it, in Masechet Rosh Hashana 17A, as Not being exacting, not being measure for measure to those that pain him. He lets his middot go, and he just keeps going. He just moves on. And if that is the way the person acts, then God's justice isn't exacting with him, it just keeps moving as well. So Maavir Al Midotav means to move on. You just move on. You don't get stuck. And what's reward for it? Number one is that his sins are forgiven. But there’s another reward: The Gemara in Masechet Chagiga 5A, discusses a person that, for some reason, dies before his time, as the pasuk says, “ Sometimes people go before their times.” The Gemara asks, what do we do with those extra years? And it says, If there is a Talmid Hacham/Torah scholar who is Maavir B’Mileh, (which Rashi says means Maavir B’Midotav ), they give those extra years to him. Unbelievable! Based on this, I saw commentary from the Maharam Shick (a student of the Chatam Sofer) that says that in the Torah, Pinhas is described with his whole lineage- Pinhas ben Elazar, ben Aharon HaKohen. Why do we give this whole lineage? It says, because the tribes were disgracing him, “ Oh, his father, his grandfather, fashioned idols for Avoda Zara…who does he think is?” Everyone was disgracing him, and yet he didn't respond. Here's a man that did the greatest act and saved the world. And yet everyone taunted him. What did he get? Et Briti Shalom . He got the Covenant of Peace, which the Seforno says is Peace from the Angel of Death. That's why Pinhas became Eliyahu, and he’ll live forever. Why was that his reward? The explanation is unbelievable – All of those 24,000 people died before their time because they sinned. They had been allotted a certain amount of years and died early. So what happened with all of those years they lost? We can estimate that was about 20 years x 24,000 lives, That’s tens of thousands of years! Pinhas, the one who was disgraced and didn’t say anything, got all of their years, and that's why he’ll live forever. Unbelievable! What a tremendous incentive to be Ma’avir Al Midotav! Have a wonderful day.

We've been talking about Hashem’s tremendous patience and tolerance, and how even though we sin, God continues to bestow His bounty and blessings upon us. The Hovot Halevavot, in his Shaar Cheshbon HaNefesh section (chapter 3, 6th calculation), says, “ If any of our limbs would not do what they're supposed to do, for example, if the ones that are supposed to be moving would stop, or the ones that are supposed to be stopped would move ( Like we say in Asher Yatzar, if one of them opens, that is supposed to be closed or closes that’s supposed to be open), we would lose our ability to live, and yet the limbs keep going. He says, Really when a person doesn't follow God, then the limbs shouldn't follow him. If he’s not listening to His creator, why should his limbs listen to him? He gives a mashal of a king who commanded some of his servants to carry one of his ministers across a river. He instructed his servants to be very careful as they crossed the river, that the minister shouldn’t get hurt or fall. And while the servants were carrying the minister, the minister also had a responsibility. He had to take a flag and wave it back and forth as they went across the river. The servants followed their part of the deal, they carried the minister across the river very carefully. But the minister was asleep the entire time. He did not do his job. He did not wave the flag. So one of the servants said, Dear minister, you are ignoring the king's command. Why aren't you concerned that we'll do the same thing and also ignore the king's command? His command was that we should watch over you. And just like you're not following, we won't follow. And if we don't follow, you're going to fall into this big river and die a horrible death. Do Teshuva and repent immediately and ask God for forgiveness. And just like we're not ignoring the king's command, neither should you . Says the Hovot Halevavot, that's what’s going on with us. Our limbs continue to follow the rules and regulations, our stomachs digests the food, our eyes see, our ears hear...and so on and so forth. They're following their command. Yet we might not be doing what God told us to do with our eyes. We might not be doing what God told us to do with our ears. We might not be doing what God told us to do with our throats and tongues and so on… That is the tremendous patience that God has, that ultimately He is the one that controls the servants. The servants don't have a mind of their own, the limbs don't have a mind of their own, and yet they continue to follow their command, even though we don't necessarily follow ours. Again, all of this is to teach us how much patience God has, and how we should emulate God's patience.

We are now going through the sefer Tomar Devorah , which talks about God's 13 Attributes, as mentioned by Micha. The first is called Mi El Kamocha/Who is a God like You, the point being that God has tremendous tolerance and patience for His creations. Even though they act in a rebellious way against him, God continues to shower His kindness upon them. We will give some examples of what God does, in order for us to learn to emulate Him. In Beresheet (3,21) it says that after Adam and Chava sinned and realized they were naked, God made for them leather garments, וילבישם V’Yalbishem/And He clothed them with them. It doesn't say He made clothing L’lbosh/ for them to wear , like is used in Bereshit 28, 20, where Yaakov Avinu asks for Beged Lilbosh/ clothing to wear , but rather it says clothing that He actually clothed them in. Hashem made them clothing and clothed them. What is this pasuk trying to say? Rabbenu Bachye explains that God wanted to show not just that He created clothing for them after they sinned against Him- Because God should technically say, Hey, you realized you're naked? You made yourself feel naked! Figure it out yourselves- But No, God went and created clothing, and He did not just create the clothing and put it on the rack- VYalbishem . He actually put the clothing on them, so to say. It was also, as Rabbenu Bachye says, להורות על אהבתו וחמלתו על יצוריו To show God's love and compassion for His creations, שאף על פי שחטאו לא זז מחבבן והוא בעצמו השתדל בתיקונם And even though they sinned He did not stop from showing them endearment. And He Himself, tried to fix the problem that they created. God could have had someone else do it. He goes on to say that this too is the way God acted with Adam HaRishon’s future generations, in the desert, as we mentioned last week. Even after they sinned the sin of the golden calf, God continued to bring the Manna down, and did not stop showing His endearment to them. Furthermore, he says that at the splitting of the sea, the Jewish people went into the sea with an idol! There was an idol called Pessel Micha, as it says in Zechariah 10,11, ועבר בים צרה זה פסל מיכה. צרה זו עבודה זרה In the ocean, passed a Tsara, which literally means a co-wife , which means competition for God. The Midrash explains that it refers to Pessel Micha. And yet God split the sea. And to this point, Daniel said (9,7) לך ה' הצדקה ולנו בושת הפנים: You God, have the act of charity, And we are embarrassed. We are embarrassed because God continues to shower His blessings on us, even when we sin. And again, the main point is to emulate God, and see how we can relate that to people that have wronged us, and continue to act benevolently to them.

We continue to talk about God's tremendous tolerance, patience and acceptance of disgrace. We go back to the pasuk in Nehemiah (chapter 9), where he is giving a speech to the Jewish people and he says the words ואתה מחיה את כלם God gives life to all, and it continues on, as we know in our prayers, with: You are the one that chose Avram and took him out of Ur Kasdim and gave him the name Avraham, made a Brit with him.. and so on. until it says, You split the sea and the enemies were thrown into the deeps like a rock in the waters . That's the end of what we say in our prayers, but the pasuk continues -perek ט pasuk יב - And You guided them with the cloud and a fire at night and You came down on Har Sinai, You gave them the Torah and You gave them Shabbat and You gave them manna from the heavens. and You gave them water from the rock and they didn't want to listen. They did not remember the miracles that You did. They were stiff necked and they wanted to go back to Mitzrayim. But you, God, are a God of mercy, a God that forgives, a God that's Erech Apayim that has patience and takes a long time to get angry, V’Rav Hessed, VLo Azavtam/ and You did not forsake them even though they sinned against You. And now for our powerful pasuk: אַ֗ף כִּֽי־עָשׂ֤וּ לָהֶם֙ עֵ֣גֶל מַסֵּכָ֔ה וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ זֶ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֶעֶלְךָ֖ מִמִּצְרָ֑יִם וַֽיַּעֲשׂ֔וּ נֶאָצ֖וֹת גְּדֹלֽוֹת Even though they made a golden calf, and they said, “This is your God that took you out of Egypt” And yet, with Your great mercy, You did not forsake them in the Midbar. You could have just turned off the a.c. The cloud did not stop from guarding them, and the cloud of fire did not stop at night. Unbelievable! God continued to direct them in the desert, even though they were sinning at that very moment! That is the tremendous level of disgrace that God takes. Rashi in Yehezkiel ( 16, 19) says, The day the Egel was made, the manna came down, and they actually put the manna in front of the golden calf! And even so, God gave them manna the next day Can you believe that? The manna was going to the Egel , and God continued ton give them the manna. Unfathomable! This is how far God's tolerance and patience goes. Not humanly comprehendible. And yet we have to try our best to emulate that…

Today's class is dedicated in memory of my uncle, Albert D. Sutton, Avraham Ben Emma a’h May this class should be an Ilui Nesham for him. We're discussing the trait of God, that He has tremendous tolerance because He’s constantly being disgraced. In his Sefer Shaar Hayirah, on the topic of fear (10th chapter), the Reshit Hochma, (a student of Rav Moshe Cordevero, author of the Tomar Devorah), says that a pious man once said, Don't rebel against your master when he is watching you . The only problem is, God is always watching us- so never rebel. And he says that every breath that we take is really a breath of God. As the pasuk says in Devarim 8,3 כִּ֛י עַל־כׇּל־מוֹצָ֥א פִֽי־יְהֹוָ֖ה יִחְיֶ֥ה הָאָדָֽם׃ Man lives from what emanates from the mouth of God. That means that every second we're living not off the food that we eat, not off the drinks that we drink, but from the fact that God is putting energy into us. That was the lesson of the manna . God is the One that's giving us energy, not anything that we eat or drink. And if that's the case, he says, all of our breathing should be for God. That's what David Hamelech’s final words in Tehilim meant: Kol Ha Neshama TeHallel Ya/ All souls should praise God. The Midrash Raba says that Neshama can be read as Neshima - as in: For every breath we have to thank God. Because every breath that we take is a breath of God. That's the biggest sign of how frail and feeble we are. We are fragile. If we don't breathe for a certain amount of time, we can't survive. But who's putting the oxygen into us? God is breathing oxygen into us. And he goes on and quotes his Rabbi that God is called the God that’s disgraced, for the reason we discussed previously, that God is giving us the energy and we sin with the energy He gives us. He gives a mashal of a king that gives his servant money to buy bread in order to live on. But instead of buying bread, the servant uses the money to buy a stick, and then he hits his master with the stick- the stick that he bought with the money that the master gave him! Is there any servant worse than that? That's God. He gives us our life. He gives us our breath. He gives us our energy to use for ourselves to serve Him and ultimately be rewarded. And instead, we buy a stick with it, and hit Him and work against Him. And yet, with all that being said, God continues to ignore, to have patience and tolerance, and continues to benefit us. And of course, the ultimate lesson is going be that we, who are not a God, who didn't give anybody anything much, should have a level of patience towards those that torment us or go against us.

We've been speaking about the concept of tolerance , to be Sovel . As we mentioned from Rav Wolbe, a lot of this comes from the beautiful sefer Tomar Devorah, by Rav Moshe Cordevero, on the 13 attributes of mercy, based on the pasuk in Micha , Mi El Kamocha. The Pele Yoetz, under the topic of Devekut , says that a person should read the Tomar Devorah once a month, and try his best to live up to these Middot of Hashem. In Arot Elim, another sefer by the Pele Yoetz, he includes a shorter version of these 13 attributes, in order for one to review constantly. Furthermore, Rav Yitzhak Blazer, the great student of Rav Yisrael Salantar, also known as Rav Yitzhak of Peterburg, made a list of kabalot , as many great rabbis do, and on his list of things to work on was to work on his Ahavat Habriot/ loving your fellow people, and he too said that the way to act on this is to constantly review the sefer Tomar Devorah . So if that’s the case, we are going to try to do that; to work on the 13 Attributes of Mercy as they show up in the sefer Tomar Devorah. The first thing Rav Cordevero writes (in what we’ll call the introduction), is that a person is supposed to emulate his Creator, as it says when man was created, “ Let us make man, with our form and our image.” That means, in a sense (and of course it doesn’t really mean this), man is created in the image of God. We can imagine a man up there in the heavens, and there are certain, traits that are symbolized by that. Of course, God is not anything physical or human, but we are , in some way, in our form and our image, like God. But he says that it’s not enough to, so to say, look like. The main thing, he says, is to act like, and that's the job of this pasuk , Mi El Kamocha; to act like God, not just to have the potential that we were, so to say, created in His image. We have to act in that image. We have mentioned this recently, but we're now going to go into it in depth. The first Middah is called Mi El Kamocha / who is like You. This means that Hashem is what he calls Melech Ne’elav, a King that's disgraced, Sovel Elbon/God tolerates disgrace, to a point that's not fathomable. And he makes two points: 1-nothing is ever hidden from God's supervision, without a doubt. 2-there isn't a second that man is not being sustained from the sustenance that God gives him. And therefore, it never happened that man sinned, and at the moment he was sin, God was not giving the ability to sin against Him. God tolerates this and continues to give His bounty and allow the person to move and function. It’s not that God can't stop it at any second, because He can, as we see from the story of Yeravam, who had a sudden stroke. God should technically say, “If you're sinning, sin with your power, not with Mine.” Yet God continues to give His bounty, which is not fathomable. That's why God is called me Mi El Kamocha . The term El means both Baal Hessed and powerful . That means God gives Hessed, and He can take it back, but He doesn't. Before we go further into how a human being is supposed to act, we will expound upon the point of God constantly pumping energy into creation. It's the pasuk in Nehemiah, perek ט that we say every single day. אַתָּה־ה֣וּא ה׳ לְבַדֶּ֒ךָ֒ (את) [אַתָּ֣ה] עָשִׂ֡יתָ אֶֽת־הַשָּׁמַ֩יִם֩ שְׁמֵ֨י הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וְכׇל־צְבָאָ֗ם הָאָ֜רֶץ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁ֤ר עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ הַיַּמִּים֙ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר בָּהֶ֔ם You made the heavens and the heavens above the heavens, and all the hosts, the earth and everything that's upon it (lions and tigers, bears), the oceans, and everything that's inside of them ( all the deep sea creatures). And now for the four magical words: וְאַתָּ֖ה מְחַיֶּ֣ה אֶת־כֻּלָּ֑ם And You constantly give life to all of them. וּצְבָ֥א הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם לְךָ֥ מִשְׁתַּחֲוִֽים׃ And that’s why the heavenly beings bow to You . Because they know how much You are responsible for creation. In another sefer, Pardes Rimonim, written by Rabbi Cordevero (6 th gate, 8th chapter), he says, that this is the meaning of וּבְטוּבוֹ מְחַדֵּשׁ בְּכָל־יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית God is constantly renewing creation. Because every day, God is pumping energy in for that day. And if God would not decide to rejuvenate creation, everything would stop. Before we go on to how human beings should be tolerant, we're going to further study God's level of tolerance.