WiFi Dvar Torah, Haazinu / Sukkos 5780 · 3 minutes
For weeks we have been saying זָכְרֵנוּ לְחַיִּים and וְכָתְבֵנוּ בְּסֵפֶר הַחַיִּים. What chaim are we asking for? “Life” — what does that actually mean?
And there is a mitzvah coming whose kavanah most of us do not know: lulav, esrog, hadasim, aravos. All the worlds, the Rav says, depend on doing it properly — yet we barely know what to think while we shake them.
Haazinu answers in one pasuk: כִּי לֹא דָבָר רֵק הוּא מִכֶּם כִּי הוּא חַיֵּיכֶם (Devarim 32:47) — the Torah is not empty to you; it is your life.
Sefer hachaim is not a generic ledger of years. It is a sefer that connects us to Torah — that we should have the access to Torah we were meant to have. That is the chaim of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the Aseres Yemei Teshuvah.
The Arizal gives a kavanah anyone can hold. Halacha is not a spin: each of the six directions, out and in, three times. Six times three is eighteen — chai.
Each of those eighteen na’anuim brings down the chaim you have been asking for. The tefillos of the Yamim Noraim are not replaced; they are drawn down when we show that Torah and mitzvos are dear to us — by doing the mitzvah patiently, not racing a circle.
Takeaway. Be sealed in the Book of Life — meaning the life of Torah, mitzvos, and avodas Hashem. When you take the daled minim, do not scribble chai. Draw it: six directions, out and in, eighteen times.
This week in the catalog: one Haazinu recording (the WiFi above). Shabbos Shuva’s dvar is on the next page.
All these parshiyos are walking: Ki Seitzei (going out), Ki Savo (coming in), Nitzavim (standing), Vayeilech (walking). וַיֵּלֶךְ מֹשֶׁה — where did Moshe go? And he says לֹא אוּכַל עוֹד לָצֵאת וְלָבוֹא — “I can no longer go out and come in.” Rashi: this is not physical decline. His vigor at 120 was as at 80. So what could he no longer do?
Why pile up mitzvos in the Aseres Yemei Teshuvah if those are on this year’s account? Because teshuvah mi’yirah only downgrades. Teshuvah mei’ahavah turns aveiros into zechuyos.
The falling is the climbing. “In the place where ba’alei teshuvah stand, even perfect tzaddikim cannot stand.” Without going out, there is no coming back in. Mitzvos done with love in these days convert the teshuvah into teshuvah mei’ahavah — they show where we actually want to stand. That is the irbuv haSatan: the Satan fears to mention our aveiros, because love-teshuvah would flip every one of them into a merit.
לֹא אוּכַל עוֹד לָצֵאת וְלָבוֹא — Moshe had no more room to fall and climb back. He could no longer leave his place and return greater. He was complete; that is how he knew it was his last day.
Takeaway. We still have challenges — that is our advantage. Do teshuvah for the past, fill these days with mitzvos done in love, and last year’s failures themselves become this year’s merits.
Listen. Open the weekly package — one Shabbos, the recordings in order.
Audio from the ICJS Torah podcast.
Editorial compilation from the ICJS Torah podcast. Not a verbatim transcript. For the original audio: icjstorah.libsyn.com