Naso 5782

Part I. Nazir and Sotah

Visiting the Psychiatrist

We find that when the Navi Amos (2:11,12) was reproving the people during the days of the first Beis Hamikdash he said as follows: מִבְּנֵיכֶם לִנְבִיאִים וּמִבַּחוּרֵיכֶם לִנְזִרִים – I raised up from your sons nevi’im and your young men to be nezirim, only that וְעַל הַנְּבִיאִים צִוִּיתֶם לֵאמֹר לֹא תִּנָּבְאוּ – you said to the nevi’im don’t prophesize, וַתַּשְׁקוּ אֶת הַנְּזִרִים יָיִן – and you gave the nezirim to drink wine.

It means that the parents in the Ten Tribes were no longer of the same caliber as the old time Israelite parents who were proud to have sons who separated themselves for the service of Hashem. Lehavdil it’s like today when parents see their children moving ahead, going further in avodas Hashem than they themselves are, so they’re opposed to it. They try to take you to the psychiatrist.

That’s what mothers do when they see the boy is getting too frum; theypanic. And in the later days of the Bayis Rishon similar things happened. In many instances when a young man was moved to take upon himself such a vow, his parents forced upon him wine in order he should break his neder. That’s what the Navi was reproving the people about.

Nazirites Everywhere

However, we see from Amos’s words that in Eretz Yehuda and the whole Am Yisroel in the days of old, this was an accepted practice. If a young man or woman’s heart was moved to be devoted to the service of Hashem they assumed a vow of nezirus for a certain period of time during which they were devoted entirely to the service of Hashem.

In the ancient times, nezirus was an institution in our people. There was a class among our nation who had taken upon themselves a vow of nezirus, some for thirty days and some for many years and some for their lifetime. And it was approved of. In those days, it was done frequently.

It was a common thing on the streets of old Yerushalayim to see nezirim walking with long hair, individuals or bands of nezirim who kept together because they all lived the same kind of life. Even in the times of the second Beis Hamikdosh when there was no longer any nevi’im, but there were bands of nezirim. It was a common thing. It was an accepted part of Jewish life.

In the times of Shimon ben Shatach, when he was the av beis din, there were three hundred poor nezirim whose time had come to bring their offerings, but they couldn’t afford them. There were many others – maybe thousands – who brought their offerings out of their own pockets. But we find that Shimon ben Shatach appealed to King Yannai, that the king should finance the offerings of three hundred nezirim who couldn’t afford them (Yerushalmi Brachos 7:2). So you see how many nezirim there were.

Standing Out

Now we have to understand that in those days, the Jewish people kept the Torah. Everybody ate kosher. Everybody kept Shabbos. And so when a man separated from the people, he didn’t separate from a crowd of agnostics, chas v’shalom. He wasn’t separating from people who were disloyal. Every Jew in those days had a fiery patriotism burning in his heart. In the ancient times, the Jews were proud of their nation, even the Jews who weren’t so frum! They were all proud of their Torah and that was their constitution. They had no other code of laws except the Torah. And therefore, when a nazir separated, he wasn’t separating from a low multitude. He was separating from what today would be a very good public, people who would be admired today.

And yet, when a man separates in order to become better, Hakodosh Boruch Hu approves of him; He considers it a remarkable thing. That’s what it says אִישׁ כִּי יַפְלִא לִנְדֹּר נֶדֶר נָזִיר לְהַזִּיר לַהַשֵּׁם – If a man does an extraordinary thing and becomes a Nazir for the sake of Hashem (Naso 6:2). יַפְלִא means he does something remarkable; he separates out from the usual behavior of what’s doing around him. Something stirred his mind, and now he wants to go beyond what others are doing; he wants to be better, a head taller.

Now, the Nazir lived a normal life among his fellowmen. He lived like we do. He was married too in most cases. Of course he worked too. A Nazir is still obligated to fulfill his requirements of the kesubah. But there was a certain attitude he had, and certain practices, which he made use of to lift himself up from the multitude. He was a man who separated from the world in certain respects.

And Hakodosh Boruch Hu crowned him because of that; נֵזֶר אֱלֹּקָיו עַל רֹאשׁוֹ. It’s an approval of the Torah on people who want to get ahead of themselves, who don’t want to remain in a rut and they try to lift themselves out of their daily environment and they seek to do things that other people would not do.

Removing the Crown

However, right now I want to leave the topic of Nazir for a few minutes and speak to you about something else. Because in this week’s sedrah right before we read about the Nazir, the man or woman crowned with the crown of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, there’s another parsha, a parsha that we’re not so proud of. The Chumash tells us about a woman whose husband warned her not to go into any private places with a certain man and then she did it anyhow; she went someplace with that man and now her husband suspects her of doing an aveirah, that’s a Sotah. A Sotah – a misfortune!

It’s a tragedy in the Am Yisroel, the goy kadosh. It’s the opposite of a Nazir’s crown; we’re talking now about a woman whose crown of glory is removed and she is disgraced in public.

What would they do? It was a big procedure. She was forced to come to Yerushalayim, into the courtyard of the Beis Hamikdosh, where the Sanhedrin Hagedolah was sitting and she had to go through a very humiliating ceremony. She had to drink a certain water in which they erased a megillah. They wrote a megillas sotah, in which a curse with the name of Hashem was inscribed, and that ink was dissolved in the water and she was supposed to drink it.

Connecting the Dots

Now, according to the Torah, if she was guilty, it would happen a miracle to her and she would be smitten with an illness immediately. And if she’s innocent, she would survive. It wasn’t a trial by water like the jūdicium Deī, that she needed a miracle to survive. It wasn’t a danger because there was nothing that would convict her except the miracle. If a man has to be convicted by a miracle, he has a very good chance of surviving. But still, the ordeal of going through such a test is a great disgrace.

Now, our Sages made note of the fact that this parsha of the Nazir who crowns himself by going above and beyond, comes immediately after the story of the Sotah. לָמָּה נִסְמְכָה פַּרְשַׁת נָזִיר לְפַרְשַׁת סוֹטָה – “Why,” they asked, “is the parsha of Nazir and the parsha of Sotah put together? (Brachos 63a). Why is it that right after the story of this disgraced woman, the Torah comes along and teaches us about a Nazir?”

Now, to us that might not be such a big question. After all, something had to follow the parsha of Sotah. What does it matter if it’s this or that? But our Sages understood that everything in the Torah is important; every letter, every nuance. And therefore they asked about that. What’s the connection between the two?

Leave It To The Experts

The truth is, on our own we’ll never know all the reasons. It’s like a little boy trying to understand why the Secretary of State of the United States issued this and this pronouncement. Imagine a little child in pre-kindergarten and he’s sitting on his stool, the stool with the hole in it, and he’s looking at the most recent pronouncement from the State Department and he’s trying to figure out why the Secretary of State said this exact word, why he put this sentence next to that sentence. You can understand already how far he’ll get.

Our sages on the other hand were experts. Of course even they would never get the whole thing – nobody could dig down deep enough and understand the full gamut of the wisdom of Hakodosh Boruch Hu – but whatever diamonds they could scoop up were very valuable.

And the answer they give is that the Torah is teaching us an important lesson here about how to succeed in this world: לָמָּה נִסְמְכָה פַּרְשַׁת נָזִיר לְפַרְשַׁת סוֹטָה – Why are the two parshiyos of Nazir and Sotah together, one after the other? לוֹמַר לָךְ שֶׁכָּל הָרוֹאֶה סוֹטָה בְּקִלְקוּלָהּ יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן – To teach us that when someone sees what happened to the Sotah, he should become a Nazir; he should accept a vow of nezirus upon himself. Anybody who sees the downfall of a Sotah should become a Nazir and separate himself from wine.

Abstinence and Common Sense

One of the contributing factors to the downfall of an otherwise decent person is drinking, intoxication. What people do when they’re intoxicated is unimaginable to the sober person. The Gemara (Sotah 7a) says, הַרְבֵּה יַיִן עוֹשֶׂה – wine does very much. It can accomplish things that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

That’s the great virtue of coming to cocktail parties where men and women are mingling. In the gentile advertisements it’s portrayed as an ideal – they show you a picture of a man standing around holding a glass of whiskey in a certain fashionable way while leaning against a piece of furniture and engaging in conversation with a silly female in a cocktail dress.

And of course that whiskey or bourbon plays a very important role in that game they’re playing. They’re drinking intoxicating liquors and therefore מָה יַעֲשֶׂה הַבֵּן וְלֹא יֶחֱטָא? It is surely followed by sin, it’s inevitable. Of course it happens and it’s a great misfortune. They’re ruined people. Their lives are ruined. Their families are ruined. Don’t we see it happening all the time?

And that’s the lesson our Sages wanted us to learn from how the Torah ordered the parshiyos – that when a man sees what could happen as a result of too much drinking, he should take upon himself a vow to become a Nazir. That’s why the two are together. If you see what happened as a result of intemperance, then you must take a vow of temperance, of abstinence. It’s common sense advice. And our Sages learned this common sense from the Torah. It’s the Torah’s common sense.

Part II. Seeing The Sotah

A Message from Heaven

Now the way the meforshim generally explain this maamar Chazal is as follows. According to this understanding the Torah is teaching us that if you see a Sotah in her disgrace – then you should take it as a lesson to separate yourself from what led to that downfall. It’s a warning from Heaven: “You are being warned now – take action!”

When you see the effects of intemperance, when you see what happens when people follow the ways of the world and don’t have any check on their behavior and then you see the misfortunes that happen because of that, so you become obligated to think, “Oy vey! Chas v’shalom, that could have been me! Chas v’shalom, chas v’shalom! No more wine for me! No more intemperance and mingling for me!”

That’s why you saw it. It was sent min haShomayim; these messages are sent to you from Heaven, as a signal that you should take them to heart. It didn’t happen just by itself. It could have happened and you wouldn’t be aware of it. The fact that you heard or saw is because Hakodosh Boruch Hu has pity on you and He’s forewarning you. And therefore, it’s your obligation to listen to the message. That’s what he’s saying. כָּל הָרוֹאֶה – if you see something like that, then don’t wait any longer! That’s the final warning! יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן – you have to change your ways.

Seeing is Knowing

Now the question is asked: Why do you have to wait for the Sotah to demonstrate it? If we know that wine could cause such a thing, why do you have to wait until we see that it actually happened? Even without seeing it, anybody who reads the Torah or the Gemara should immediately say, “I’ll be a Nazir.” Parshas Naso comes along and right after the baal korei reads the story of the Sotah we should all become nezirim without ever seeing a sotah bekilkulah. But no, it says “Anyone who sees the Sotah in her disgrace should separate from wine.”

And so we’ll say that the idea is like this. Once you see it, it’s not theoretical anymore; it’s real. It’s a different kind of knowledge that Hashem is sending you and it therefore puts a much bigger burden on you. When you see it actually happen, then it becomes an obligation on you more than ever before.

Drunk Driving

After all, don’t we know that children are killed on the highway every day while speeding under the influence of liquor? It’s no longer news today. Not only are they killed, but they kill others too. Drunken driving is maybe more dangerous than homicide. Despite the climbing figures of homicide, drunken driving is even bigger. And the drivers themselves are also victims. We don’t take it to heart, however.

But suppose you pass by and you see three ambulances and three police cars and a smashed car and they’re pulling a mangled young fellow out of the car; so that is a lesson that has an effect.

If somebody tells you, “You know so-and-so from the synagogue? His son just died in a crash from drunk driving on a highway” – it happened once in my synagogue; during davening three policemen came in and they had to tell one of the congregants that his son was killed in a drunk driving accident. When something like that happens, when you see that, you must take action. You have to think, “Why did Hashem make me see such a thing? Isn’t that telling me something?”

Don’t Be Stupid

If you’re a rabbi, you get the messages from all over, the tragedies, all over! In Orthodox Jewish life, Modern Orthodox Jewish life, it’s one after the other – you see what happens to people who follow in the ways of the gentiles under a hechsher of the UO. They have kosher food but otherwise their gatherings are gentile gatherings. And therefore many times women and men fall into the net of sin because they don’t have any separation between men and women. In the synagogues, maybe they have a little mechitzah, but in their parties they don’t have any mechitzah and we know what happens.

How many times have we seen a woman who chooses to go to a therapist and terrible things happen?! I could tell you stories of ruined families, ruined children. And so ha’roeh, when you see that, yazir, take that lesson! Men shouldn’t be involved with women and women shouldn’t be involved with men. Beware of psychologists and psychiatrists! Beware of therapists! If you’re foolish enough to go to a therapist, choose a woman therapist. A woman should choose a woman, and a man goes to a man. No exceptions!

Those who are lax with the dinim of yichud that forbids a man to be alone with a woman are victims of circumstances that are tragic – besides making them broken people morally – their lives are ruined. It happens all the time among them. Here is a man, could be he doesn’t mean any harm, but he happens to be alone with a female. And it happens. He’s human and he’s nichshal. He stumbles. He does a cheit and his life is ruined.

You have to learn the lesson! How long will you wait, you dumb people?! Will you forever remain stupid fools? When you see something like that you’re not supposed to remain thick headed and ignore it. That story was put next to you, it was nismacha to you, so you should swear off all of those foolish attitudes and gentile practices that caused that to happen. Don’t think such things happen in a vacuum. It starts with the television and the radio and the novels, the magazines that people bring into their homes.

Public Schools Ruin Children

People are very slow in waking up. Among the gentiles there are a lot of Christians who have already decided to throw out the television. They realize what a danger it is. And here is a fool, a man with a little beard, an ex-yeshivah man; he has semichah and he even comes to shiur at night. But every night he sits with his little children in front of the television set, and he holds them with his arms; he embraces them. He wants to show them that the father is together with the children in their interests; so he’s mechanech them in the mitzvah of being metameh their little neshamos – besides his own.

This is a craziness! He’s ruining his family! And other people who see this must learn lessons. Why are you Americanizing your family?! Why are you allowing every type of filth into your home?! Why are you sending your children to high schools where boys and girls learn together in the same classrooms?! That’s not a yeshiva.  It’s a caricature. They have a sign “Yeshiva” outside. It’s a terrible place. How can a parent not see the disgrace of what’s doing in the gentile world, the disgrace that mixing has brought upon the world, and be so stupid?!

At least be like an Irishman or an Italian of forty years ago. Forty years ago (in 1944) there wasn’t an Irishman or an Italian who would send his daughter to a co-ed public school, all schools were segregated. For high school there were separate buildings entirely, in different parts of the city.

So we tell you, “Don’t you see what’s going on today? They’re ruining our children! How many examples are you going to see without reacting?! That’s why you have ruined families; because nobody is taking the lessons.

Horror in Spring Valley

Here’s a mother and father who didn’t learn. They could have sent their daughter to a Jewish school. But they weren’t interested in seeing any lessons. And so one day, the girl is about seventeen, and in anger against her parents – it doesn’t take much to make a spoiled child hate her parents – so she brought over a couple of friends, Italian boys. And first of all, they beat the father to death. That’s what this Jewish girl did with her friends. Then they took the mother and drowned her in the bathtub. That happened in Spring Valley, in New York State.

Now if we read that, we have to learn a lesson. First of all, who tells you to move far out? They lived out in the suburbs, far away from the Jewish neighborhood. Near Spring Valley, in Monsey there are frum Jewish neighborhoods. Why couldn’t you live on the frum block? Don’t you see what’s happening to the Jews who run away from their people?

If you would have sent your daughter to Bais Yaakov, you would have remained alive. A Bais Yaakov girl, even if she isn’t the best girl but she wouldn’t do that. You would have remained alive. They would have taken their daughter to the chuppah. They could have grandchildren instead of being beaten to death or drowned in the bathtub.

Live in The Schmaltz

And so when you read what happens to people who live out in the sticks and they raise their children like American bums, do something about it! Anybody who doesn’t want that ‘nachas’, יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן! You have to learn the lesson! Don’t you see what’s happening?! And even if the child won’t murder you, if your daughter moves out into an apartment by herself, who knows what she does there? That’s nachas?!

And therefore, יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ, separate from the wine of gentile ways. That’s what the ma’amar is saying. Don’t wait to be hit over the head fifty times. If you get clubbed over the head once, take the lesson to heart and do something about it. Better yet learn from someone else’s clubbing. Move! Move into a good Jewish neighborhood! Join a frum kehilla – the best you can! Try to bring back your children with every kind of subterfuge, by bribery, by cajoling. There are ways and means of helping children come back. But you have to take action. Don’t wait anymore because there’s a pit of destruction waiting for you in this world, and after that there’s a Gehenom.

And therefore, כָּל הָרוֹאֶה סוֹטָה בְּקִלְקוּלָהּ – if you see such things, how much should a man be taught the same lesson over and over? Don’t you see what happened again and again? How many times do you have to be taught the lesson? And so יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן – he should separate from wine and from all other factors that cause people’s downfall.

Part III. Counteracting The Sotah

Sign Of The Times

However, the Chovos Halvovos has another peirush on this ma’amar; he says the following, a different pshat. שֶׁכָּל הָרוֹאֶה סוֹטָה בְּקִלְקוּלָהּ – When you see a Sotah in her downfall, it’s a symptom of what’s doing in the world. Not only is it a sign sent for you; it’s a symptom. And a symptom is never an isolated phenomenon. It means there’s something wrong in society. If such a thing could happen in a society, it shows that they’re straying away from the ideals.

In the olden days when Jews were a loyal people, when did it happen that a man committed adultery with another woman? When did such a disgusting thing happen among the Jews? Once in a blue moon. It was so rare that it would be a historic matter.

All around them, there was a sea of immorality; all the nations were loose in their behavior. I remember when I was in Lithuania. Among the gentiles, getting married was a waste of time. If somebody saved up enough money to get married, so the children would come to the wedding. I myself saw it.

Island of Decency

And every Wednesday was a spectacle in itself. Wednesday was the fair day, the market day, in the small town where I lived, and all the peasants would come, the poor peasants; they were as poor as anything. They came and they sold their produce. They were selling their chickens, their sheep, their lumber and their linens.

And then they took their money and they went straight to the saloon and they got drunk. I can’t say it was every single one of them, but I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw a shocking sight. On Thursday morning I saw a heap of men and women, lying dead drunk, all on top of each other, like a pile of old clothing. And with vomit all over them. I was shocked but people told me that this is the regular procedure for every week.

But the Jews were an island of decency among them. Among the Am Yisroel we didn’t have such symptoms of sickness. But suppose it happened once. הָרוֹאֶה סוֹטָה בְּקִלְקוּלָהּ! Oy vey! It’s a symptom that something is wrong in the nation! How could it happen, that a woman was warned by her husband and still she went into hiding with a strange man? The healthy constitution of our people, the vitality of the nation is weakening! It means corruption has seeped in.

School for American Girls

And therefore, יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן; you have to take vitamins. That nation has to receive a dose of vitamins in order to restore the general health of that body of the people. Because this symptom shows there’s a rot in the body that caused the symptoms to develop, and so you have to start creating vitamins for the body by behaving in a way that’s more than the usual norm of decency.

That’s what it means יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן. Not only wine. Everything! People should now take upon themselves a different kind of life in order to bring a new wind to blow upon the people, a different trend of society. When you see a generation that’s porutz, that’s broken down in a certain thing, then you should go to the opposite direction and be extreme in the opposite direction. You have to aspire to a more noble, holier life and that’s going to cause the balance to weigh against the corruption that is weighing down on the wrong side.

I once spoke to a chaver of mine, a Litvak, a real Litvak. He came to America and he put his daughter into Beis Rochel, into the Satmar girls’ school. I said, “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

So he said, “It’s different times today.” And he gave me a mashal. He said it’s like when you’re walking when there’s a wind storm, a very strong wind is blowing against you, so it’s not enough to walk erect. You’re afraid you’ll lose your balance and keel over so you have to walk bent over; otherwise, the wind will knock you down. You have to lean in against the wind to maintain your balance. Otherwise, if you’ll stand straight, you’ll fall down.

We Need Extremism

Today, it’s not enough to walk komemiyus. The Sifri says “komemiyus” (Vayikra 26:13) means knowing Torah. Today it’s not enough to be erect with Torah, komemiyus with Torah. To be erect is not enough. You have to bend over today. Otherwise, the strong winds are sure to cause people to swerve from the path.

When you see that the world is becoming worse and worse; like today when you see things that are so wicked, so immoral – things that I can’t speak about in a shul; things I wouldn’t speak about even in a beis hakisei – then you must become better and better. The Chovos Halevavos says this pshat. He says that if it’s a time, if it’s a generation when we see that such things can happen, then the people of that time are more obligated than people in any other time.

Today is the time for everybody to become more and more strict in tzniyus; more and more strict in keeping everything in the Torah than even our forefathers did – because it’s more necessary. We see today sotah bekilkulah all around us!

On all sides we see misbehavior. We see wickedness. We see laxity in areas our grandparents wouldn’t have dreamed of in their wildest nightmares. Of course, the shomrei Torah are kedoshim compared to the world but even among us things have happened. And you’d be surprised how many people who are orthodox went off the path. The winds of depravity are creeping in and therefore, in a time of stress like today when so many Jews are going lost, it’s not enough for the good ones to be observant Orthodox Jews.

Don’t Feed Them

Even if we would be like our fathers or their grandparents who were good people, it’s not enough! There’s a strong wind blowing today! And therefore, the small group of devoted frumme have to become more devoted than ever! When there is so much corruption, so many anti-Torah attitudes in the air, how much more do the people today who are loyal to the Torah have to add chumros upon chumros.

I’ll give you an example. There’s a law in the Gemara (Kiddushin 81a) that if a woman has a husband in town and somebody comes, let’s say a meshulach comes in. He wants to eat, so she can give him a meal because there is a deterrent for evil doing. She has a husband in town and he might come in at any moment. It’s called baalah ba’ir, a certain heter. She’s afraid of her husband.

That was in the good old days. But when we see the world that we live in today, so now you have to say to yourself, “It’s not the olden days anymore. In the olden days people were moral. But today, absolutely not.” Not only the woman has her mind polluted by the air, but the meshulach also has his mind polluted. Even if he comes from Yerushalayim. Even in Yerushalayim today there’s so much pollution. The bad smell of Tel Aviv goes over to Yerushalayim.

And therefore it doesn’t pay today to say that heter anymore, no. You can’t rely on that today in a generation that’s so porutz. Besides, baalah ba’ir in those days, it meant it was a small town. But if he’s in Manhattan and she’s in Brooklyn it’s not called baalah ba’ir. But even if they’re both in Brooklyn, no; these rules don’t hold good anymore. You have to be machmir in dinei yichud much more than once upon a time.

Conditional Marriage

Even the best people today are spoiled, and today we need more harchakah than ever before. And I know what I’m saying. A bit of experience has taught us that we have to be especially careful today; we have to be more careful with tznius than our forefathers were. We’re obligated to be more machmir than they were. You cannot congratulate yourself that you’re just as good as you were in the 1930s or 1940s. It’s a different atmosphere today. You hear today on the radio things you wouldn’t hear fifty years ago and that’s a warning call to you: “Yazir atzmo min hayayin! Go further than ever before.”

And therefore today, if a young man marries a young woman and he says, “Look, on one condition, no radio in our house,” so she’ll be somewhat surprised because her parents always had radio. Television, that much she understands because today everyone knows that television is a sewer that brings all the filth into your home. But a radio, why not?

Oh no! Today is not yesterday! And so if he says, “I’m marrying on condition that you have no radio,” she shouldn’t be surprised because today it’s different! It’s not the same radio! The things you hear on the radio today are already outrageous things! And we shouldn’t be afraid to speak up and say, “No! We don’t want it! We’re different today! We have to fight back.”

And if you’re married already thirty years, same thing. Say to your wife, “Chana, don’t you see what’s going on in the world? We can’t just be the same as we were yesterday. We have to cut loose from the media. How can we continue bringing into our home all of these things that we see are destroying the world?

We Are Especially Precious

Today anybody who goes with a New York Times in his pocket, that person is demonstrating that he hasn’t learned the lesson of our sedrah, that כָּל הָרוֹאֶה סוֹטָה בְּקִלְקוּלָהּ יַזִּיר עַצְמוֹ מִן הַיַּיִן.

It’s like a Jew walking around with a Nazi symbol on his arm. The Nazis destroyed our bodies and this progressive craziness is eating away at our souls. The only eitzah today is to be yazir atzmo min hayayin, to keep far away from all these things that have brought disgrace and misfortune to mankind.

Now I know that I won’t be obeyed, but I’m telling you anyhow because that’s the only remedy; and the more we learn that lesson, the more we apply that lesson in our own lives, the more credit we get.

The frum Jews today in this wicked generation who go all out to beware of all of those Sotah-attitudes and practices and ideals – those are the special people who are finding especial favor in the Eyes of Hashem. They are the ones who are turning the tide for our nation, strengthening and invigorating our people in the face of the winds of corruption that are blowing stronger and stronger every day.

Let’s Get Practical

Keeping Away from “Wine”

“One who witnesses the disgrace of the Sotah must swear off wine”. We are witness to the great moral decline of society at levels unheard of before. This means that we must bend over backwards to resist being influenced by the winds that are blowing. This week I will bli neder take one minute each day to think about what I can do to remain firmly entrenched in the camp of the frumme, what can I do to show my loyalty to Hashem and His Torah. May Hashem help us stand strong.