Keeping Your Word

[Warning - If you don't like hearing shtark mussar  - please don't read...:-)]

The Nazir,  Rav Dovid Cohen, made a vow after the 1948 war. He swore never to leave his house until the Kotel is back in Jewish hands [from 1948 until 1967 Jews were not allowed to go to the Kotel]. He kept the vow, of course. He didn't leave his house for 19 years!!

There are two great lessons here. One is the sensitivity he had towards the Kedusha of the Kotel. He denied himself the basic comfort of going anywhere because he felt the צער השכינה. The other lesson is that he kept his word despite the extreme difficulty and inconvenience.

In our times [not to say it didn't exist in the past..] there is an extremely disturbing phenomenon - people who are not honest. Despite the fact that every culture and society values honestly as a primary value - it is still very common to see dishonesty. I refer not only to people who cheat the government, launder money or engage in other illegal activity, but plain old making promises and not keeping them. For example - anyone who works in fundraising will tell you how many people make pledges and don't follow through. I myself have personally witnessed many instances of seemingly honest people saying things, making promises and pledges and then not following through. I am flabbergasted that someone can say something, create trust and reliance, and then go on as if nothing happened.

I once had a friend who ran a very important organization that saved lives. He was once in America and asked to give chizuk to a community who had recently witnessed the tragic passing of a child. He declined to speak but said that there is a gemara that says that as a punishment for making pledges and not fulfilling them, children die [Shabbos 32]. You guys, he said, are CHAMPIONS at that. This was a very wealthy community but it doesn't matter - people feel better when they promise to give but when it comes time to "put their money where their mouth is" they mysteriously disappear.

The Ran in Nedarim [9a] says [to put it in modern terms] that a tzadik never says "I will send you a check in the mail" if he is approached and has his checkbook handy. He writes out the check immediately. A rasha says - send me an envelope.... He doesn't have his own envelopes??? No. It is his way of pushing off the anguish of having to give away his hard earned money and possibly - quite often - not giving at all. It is not pleasant to ignore someone standing in front of you but easy to ignore an inanimate envelope [same applies to the masses who ignore emails - even personal one's from friends].

An common occurrence - people sign up to learn mishnayos for a niftar and don't learn them. How many times I have been approached with the following query "I signed up to learn all of maseches negaim by the shloshim and I haven't started but the shloshim ends tomorrow...." Saying you are going to learn something has  the halachic status of a neder. Not keeping a neder is a very very severe offense.

The entire basis of Kabbalas HaTorah was honesty. We "swore" to Hashem that we would keep the Torah [מושבע ועומד מהר סיני]. But what obligates us to keep the oath? The Torah? The Torah only obligates us AFTER the oath but what is the basis for the oath itself? The answer is - the basic universal middah of emes [see a lovely essay on this in the sefer Ishei Yovel].

As we approach Matan Torah let us strengthen ourselves in the middah of emes:-).

לרפואת מרת הענא מרים בת חנה בתוך שח"י