Fleeting Inspiration

Harav Hagaon Yosef Elefant Shlita

אני לדודי ודודי לי. Rabbeinu Yonah explains something very interesting in Shaarei Teshvah (שער שני, אות כ"ו).

היה הלל עליו השלום אומר אם אין אני לי מי לי וכשאני לעצמי מה אני ואם לא עכשיו אימתי. ביאור הדבר. אם האדם לא יעורר נפשו מה יועילוהו המוסרים. כי אף על פי שנכנסים בלבו ביום שמעו. ישכחם היצר ויעבירם מלבבו כענין שנאמר (הושע ו) וחסדכם כענן בקר.אכן צריך האדם בשמעו המוסר לעורר נפשו ולשום הדברים אל לבו ולחשוב בהם תמיד. ועליהם יוסיף לקח ומלבו יוציא מילין. ולא יסמוך על תוכחת המוכיח לבדו.

The heilege tanna Hillel used to say, אם אין אני לי מי לי וכשאני לעצמי מה אני ואם לא עכשיו אימתי.  What does this mean? What Hillel meant when he said, אם אין אני לי, מי לי was that if a person is not going to awaken himself, what is it going to help him to hear mussar from outside sources? Even though when he hears the mussar, it does go into his heart, the yetzer hara makes a person forget, as the passuk says, “Your chessed, your good deeds, are like morning clouds that just pass by.” Therefore, when a person hears mussar, he has to be me’orer himself; he cannot just rely on external hisorerus.

Rabbeinu Yonah is saying that when a person hears mussar, it is nowhere near enough that he heard it. It is also not enough to absorb it. A person has to take the mussar that he heard and do something to make his own hisorerus, something to make the mussar his own. Otherwise, it will be fleeting, like morning clouds that just go by.

This is an incredible concept. Rabbeinu Yonah is talking about a person who went to hear a mussar shmuess and actually heard the mussar shmuess, and it even went into his heart. Yet if the person does not make his own hisorerus, then the yetzer hara will cause him to forget the mussar he heard. What is the reason for that?

The Sfas Emes points out a contradiction between two psukim in Shir Hashirim. One passuk says, אני לדודי ודודי לי (Shir Hashirim 6:3), we take the first step, we take the initiative in creating a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But the other passuk says, דודי לי ואני לו (Shir Hashirim 2:16), Hakadosh Baruch Hu takes the first step; He takes the initiative in creating the relationship. Which is it? The Sfas Emes explains that the passuk of דודי לי ואני לו is referring to the luchos rishonos. The first set of luchos was a present from Hakadosh Baruch Hu that Klal Yisrael received without any effort on their part. That was דודי לי, and then אני לו; when Klal Yisrael received the luchos rishonos, they reached the level of Adam HaRishon before the cheit.

After cheit ha’eigel, the situation changed, and Klal Yisrael had to make the first move. There was a switch to אני לדודי ודודי לי. That is why Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe, פסל לך, you have to chisel away at the stone of yourselves to make yourselves ready and fitting for Kabbalas HaTorah.

This explains something very interesting that Rav Yerucham speaks about a lot. We know that Klal Yisrael sinned almost immediately after receiving the first luchos. There is a machlokes if it was a few minutes or a few hours later, but either way, we fell very quickly after the first luchos were given. Later, Hashem told Moshe to get moving and make the second luchos. But what was the guarantee that the second luchos would last any longer than the first?

The seforim teach that when a person gets something for free, on a silver platter, that thing does not last. Easy come, easy go. Why? Because it is not something that the person worked for. If a person works hard for something and sweats in order to attain it, then that thing will endure. Since the first luchos were given to Klal Yisrael for free, without their expending any effort in order to get them, they were extremely temporary and did not last at all. However, the second luchos came from a point of אני לדודו ודודי לי, as seen by the command, פסל לך. Moshe was told that he had to sweat and work for the second luchos. Therefore, the second luchos lasted because something that a person works for, remains.

In Kisvei HaRamban, the Ramban says something remarkable. There is a machlokes in Arvei Pesachim as to whether or not besamim should be used for Havdalah when Shabbos is immediately followed by Yom Tov. The Rashbam says that we do not include besamim when Yom Tov comes right after Shabbos because there is a neshama yeseira on Yom Tov as well. Tosafos says that if this is true, then we should make Havdalah with besamim after Yom Tov. Why don’t we do so?

The Ramban answers by explaining a very basic concept. He says that we know that the kedushah of Shabbos is kvi’i v’kaimi, it is permanent and does not come from anything else. The kedushah of Shabbos is isarusa d’l’eilah; it does not come from the efforts of Klal Yisrael. It comes for free so when Shabbos is over, the neshama yeseira of Shabbos goes away because it is not something that Klal Yisrael worked to acquire.

In contrast, the neshama yeseira of Yom Tov comes through Klal’s Yisrael’s effort of being mekadesh hachodesh, which creates the kedusha of מקדש ישראל והזמנים. Since the kedusha of Yom Tov is something that comes through Klal Yisrael’s work, it is continuous, and it lasts.

The luchos rishonos were isarusa d’l’eilah, דודי לי ואני לו; they came as a present from Hakadosh Baruch Hu without any effort on Klal Yisrael’s part. As a result, they did not last. The second luchos were created with פסל לך; Klal Yisrael had to sweat and work to create the keilim to receive them. That is the yesod of psal lecha, and that is why the yesod of the second luchos is still chai vekayam today.

We explained that אני לדודי ודודי לי is the description of the relationship of the second luchos. What were the days of the second luchos? Moshe Rabbeinu went up on Har Sinai on Rosh Chodesh Elul and came down on Yom Kippur with the second luchos. Now we understand why the rashei teivos of אלול are אני לדודי ודודי לי—it is because Elul is the time of the second luchos, the days to work, the days of פסל לך. The fact that Elul has the rashei teivos of אני לדודי ודודי לי is not happenstance. It’s that way in contrast to דודי לי ואני לו. Elul is specifically אני לדודי ודודי לי; we have to make the first move.

Now we have a new understanding of אני לדודי ודודי לי, which shows us the whole essence of Elul, the whole siyata d’shemaya of Elul. אני לדודי ודודי לי is usually used to describe the closeness between Klal Yisrael and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and that is absolutely true, without question. But according to this, we are seeing another level of what אני ודודי ודודי לי means. It is not just that we are close like a דוד. It means that the relationship of אני לדודי has to come from our initiative, from us being me’orer ourselves, from us taking the first step. That is what Elul is all about. This is not just a description of the closeness; it is the way to get to the closeness.

As opposed to דודי לי ואני לו, Elul is אני לדודי ודודי לי, the luchos shniyos, the פסל לך. This is what Rabbeinu Yonah means when he says that if a person only hears mussar from the outside, and he nods his head and says, “wow that was a nice shmuess,” even though he listened, and even though he absorbed it, it is וחסדכם כענן בקר, like a morning cloud that just goes on by. He didn’t work for it, he didn’t sweat for it. He wasn’t meorrer himself; it did not come from his own initiative. In order for something to be sustainable, it’s not enough that a person heard it from the outside. If you want to have something last, it has to be מקדש ישראל והזמנים. A person has to make his own initiative, his own move, and his own hisorerus, אני לדודי ודודי לי. And if a person does that, Rabbeinu Yonah says, then it will remain. This is what we all want to happen with our avodah of Elul. We want sustainable, lasting teshuva and kirva to Hakasosh Baruch Hu.