Parshat Tzav: Bring people back to God

PARSHAT TZAV: THE IMPORTANCE OF BRINGING PEOPLE BACK TO GOD “And the fire on the altar will burn and won’t be extinguished” - Parshat Tzav Rav Natan writes in Likutey Halachot (Yoreh Deah): “The sacrifice of evildoers is an abomination.” If we don’t bring the reshaim (evildoers) back in teshuva, then the prayers won’t be accepted. If you don’t bring the reshaim back in teshuva then your prayers won’t be accepted. What, you think you’re better than them? What, you aren’t only praying because your father taught you how to pray? So go and teach someone else how to pray! Take another Jew and teach him how to say the birkat hamazon (blessings after eating bread), tell him that there’s Hashem in the world. > Tell him that if he prays, he’ll achieve every good thing. THE TORAH CAME DOWN IN YITRO'S MERIT Let’s show you how to take another Jew and pray, and this will be called “the sacrifice of evildoers is an abomination.” This prayer will simply be an abomination, because who are you anyway, to be praying? What, you’re more high-class than him because you had a father [who taught you how to pray] and he didn’t? So Rav Natan talks on page 102 about the “conquered good”. If Yitro hadn’t drawn closer [to God], then there wouldn’t have been the receiving of the Torah, because all of you had fathers. There were 360 million there, that’s 3.6 billion people who were there, all the children of Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaacov. Everyone had already descended from Tzaddikim for generation after generation. I want to see you bringing one of the nations of the world closer. So it was exactly Yitro, who was the Pope, who came closer. It’s written that because Yitro came closer [to God], so everyone else came closer. Everyone ran to Bilaam, but they didn’t like Bilaam so much, so they started to follow after Yitro, this is what the Zohar says, on Parshat Yitro. And that moment, the whole world made teshuva, they heard the kolot (voices) at the giving of the Torah, and everyone made teshuva. WE NEED TO BRING ANOTHER 'YITRO' CLOSER Let’s see you bring one like Yitro closer, another Nefesh (soul) like that. Rav Natan says that without Yitro, there couldn’t have been Matan Torah. These are the words of Rav Natan: “Without converts and baalei teshuva (newly-observant Jews), prayers aren’t accepted.” Baruch Hashem, you’re a tzaddik, your father is a tzaddik, and your son will be a tzaddik, your grandson. But this doesn’t rise up to heaven! These are all mitzvahs that people were taught to do, everything is only because that’s what you were taught to do. Baruch Hashem, you’re a good kid, you didn’t rebel, you didn’t do anything bad, you’re not a rasha. But your prayer aren’t being received, your prayer is simply an abomination. CONVERTS AND BAALEI TESHUVA CREATE ENORMOUS SPIRITUAL RECTIFICATIONS Rav Natan says: “the foundation you founded, a big community.” King David used to go in the way of ‘the foundation you founded, a big community,” and by way of this there was a rectification for the mizbeach (altar). Rebbe Nachman said in Lesson 17 that the rectification of the altar only comes about by making converts and baalei teshuva… It’s Hashem’s will that you should pray, and that you should pray well. If you pray for five hours, 10 hours that’s nothing. Even Esav used to pray for 10 hours. You read in the holy books that you need to pray for 10 hours, but let’s show you that you need to bring a new Nefesh (soul) [into the nation of Israel] who has no idea what prayer even is, and is even eating on Yom Kippur. If you bring people closer [to God], and help them to make teshuva, you will complete your seichel (intellect). You’ll receive a completely new intellect. The Rebbe says in Lesson 53 that only those who bring other people back will receive an ‘A’, will receive daat (spiritual wisdom). IF LEARNING GEMARA IS HARD FOR YOU, HELP OTHERS TO MAKE TESHUVA If you bring other people back in teshuva, then Hashem will give you intellect, in return for you completing his intellect. The fact that he doesn’t know about Shabbat, because he hasn’t got that knowledge, you’re going to complete his intellect, his intelligence. And then it will come out that you also completed your own intellect. It’s hard for you to study Gemara? It’s hard for you to study the Etz Chayim? It’s hard for you to learn the Choshen Mishpat? Bring people back in teshuva! Go for an hour or two, and help people make teshuva, and you’ll also get your intellect completed. All of this brought down by Rabbenu in Lesson 17 and lesson 53. The Zohar says on Parshat Pinchus, that at the time when Shlomo built the Beit HaMikdash, a temple of fire came down for him. Every time, Hashem is waiting to bring down a temple of fire, but each time it’s postponed. King David had a lot of work to do, he had to gather together a big community. In his time, it was said: “Our children are like plants that grow in their youth,” because in David’s time there was no bad thoughts. Until the time of Rabbi Yisrael ben Yochanan, they didn’t have thoughts. Rabbi Yochanan said in Bava Batra 91b that there were no (bad) thoughts, there were no thoughts at all. The whole time that the Temple resided in our midst was from the aspect of “our children are like plants that grow in their youth.” They were like trees, they were like stones, they didn’t have (bad) thoughts, they simply didn’t think about those things at all. > They didn’t even know that they existed. Translated from the original Hebrew HERE. 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