Rabbi David Sedley

A repository of written, audio and video Torah classes given by Rabbi David Sedley

Three weeks

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This shiur is for a refuah shleima of Ayala Pamela bat Leah. May she get well very soon!

This is basically a repeat of a shiur I gave a few years ago (on a Shabbat, so it wasnt’t recorded) so you can read more about it here.

I claim that one of the important (often overlooked) causes of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash was the lack of rebuke. The righteous people let the wicked people do their own thing and never protested. Rabbis sat idly by while Bar Kamtza was thrown out of the feast – that was the harshest blow and the ultimate reason that Bar Kamtza went to the Romans.

When we see someone behaving in a way that is unacceptable (whether religiously, or even in general human descency – like in the case of Bar Kamtza) we have a duty to stand up and say something. Obviously it must be said in a way which will be heard, and in a way that will distance the person (not like Yehoshua ben Perachiya who pushed away Jesus with two hands).

Rebuke – tochecha – is one of the most difficult mitzvot to do, but perhaps one of the most important mitzvot in the Torah. When people stand by and allow terrible things to happen they become as guilty as the perpetrators.

Here is the audio:
Rebuke – Three Weeks
(Right click and then ‘download as’)

And here are the pdf source sheets for download:
Rebuke Source Sheets

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One response to “Three weeks”

  1. The Chovos haLevavos is so convinced that human social life leads to people erring with regard to this mitzvas asseh–either by "fulfilling" it too harshly (a transgression) or failing to fulfill it at all (lemivateil asseh)–that he lists it as one of the virtues of solitary over civic life that the hermit will actually avoid the spiritual squeeze arising from the mitzvah of rebuke and thereby remain spiritually healthier. Not an argument I would have expected…!